Now that the elections are over, we citizens are once again freed from incessant exposure to the biggest waste of financial resources. Whether that ranking is accurate or not is secondary to the fact that the Presidential campaigns is a celebration of ignorance in America. The majority of statistics thrown about against an incumbent President (like Barack Obama was this year) are either inaccurate or (far more often) irrelevant, and the most commonly referenced ones are that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (known throughout the media as "the stock market").
All too often observers indicate what the markets have done during a President's tenure as a reflection of the President's effectiveness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Market trends are rarely reflective of the President; the President's role is reactive to market trends. Notwithstanding, the markets popped up more than 2% on Election Day, only to retreat the same 2% the next day. Lucky for me, I sold out of the remainder of my STAR Fund earnings as I had been planning to do all year. Let's see if the markets close higher at any point in the remaining in the year than they were on Election Day.
Maybe due to Election Day or maybe due to only being one month into my new job, I forgot to rebalance my portfolio on Friday, November 9, 2012, but my actual target date is November 10th, so I have a rebalance in place for Monday, November 12, 2012, so I am considering that date just as good as Friday's date. Especially considering the amount moving is only 0.37% of my portfolio balance (not 37%, not 3.7%, but less than one-half of one percent of my account balance).
I won't trot out the spreadsheet that I usually have of how much moved since so little did. Maybe February 2013 will have more significant moves. Probably not. Without adding money to my retirement account leaves minimal affect to my portfolio, hence the reason professionals recommend rebalancing annually, not quarterly.
