6th Place, Again. Really?

Our results to date are reported on a monthly basis on the “Standings” table on the Home page. We give you the current total value of TheMonopolyProject (TMP) as a combination of cash held (bank deposits) and the estimated value of the real estate owned (REO).

To determine how well TMP project is doing we compare it to selected other financial investments we could have made with the $100,000. This is known as the ‘opportunity cost’. Note that we could also consider other, non-financial investment uses for the $100,000. We will discuss that later. Life is not all about optimizing financial outcomes in this kingdom.

We started TMP on March 1, 2019. On March 1st, 2019, all 10 investments started at the same nominal value, $100,000.

Now that April is completed, we have our first results, the “Standings”. It’s easiest to think of this as a football or baseball sports league: The Financial League. We’re one of ten teams competing for number one in the league.

At the end of April 2019, we are still tied for 6th through 9th place. All four of these investment options are still all cash as we have not yet bought any houses and have not set up indexes for the ‘Crowdfunding’ and ‘Angel Investing’ options. There are few changes since last month’s Standings:

VTSAX, the Vanguard Total Stock Fund moved up to 2nd place, only slightly behind VGSLX, the Vanguard REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). The CD and Treasury bonds continued their slow upward increase in nominal value. Again, we only beat out “Gold” which has actually lost money since we first ‘bought’ it in March 2019 (bought at $1,293/oz on ! March, #1,276/oz on 1 May. So, who’s the big winner in the Financial League? Who’s number one?

The winner in April 2019 continued to be Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund Admiral Shares, a REIT, another real estate investment option. But VTSAX is coming up fast in second paste.

Our May results may prove more interesting because we have made two offers on houses in May and both have been accepted.

[Note on 25 July 2019: This is a corrected blog post. I had confused you, and especially myself, on posting the date of the standings. From now, on we will post as of the last calendar day of the month. This will reflect the nominal standings as of that date.]