Most men thought it would come, but no man prepared for it; no man considered it would come like a Thief in the night. . . . They have dreamed out their dream, and awakening have found nothing in their hands.
Daniel Dafoe
This is my one hundred and twelfth monthly portfolio update. I complete this regular update to check progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to maintain a portfolio of at least $3,250,000. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $112,000 (in 2026 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.45 per cent.
A secondary focus will be maintaining the minimum equity target of $2,600,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $931,054 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $47,355 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $82,469 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $93,420 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $648,615 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $954,738 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $332,674 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $296,460 |
| Bitcoin | $1,096,718 |
| Plenti Capital Notes | $84,000 |
| Financial portfolio value (excluding Bitcoin) | $3,470,785 (-$208,956) |
| Total portfolio value | $4,567,503 (-$136,493) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 29.5% |
| Global shares | 30.2% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.1% |
| International small companies | 1.3% |
| Total international shares | 32.6% |
| Total shares | 62.1% (-17.9%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.8% |
| International bonds | 3.7% |
| Total bonds | 6.5% (+1.5%) |
| Gold | 6.5% |
| Bitcoin | 24.0% |
| Gold and alternatives | 30.5% (+15.5%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the full portfolio.
Comments
This month the portfolio continued its sustained period of losses, the longest period of losses in the headline portfolio record to date.
The overall portfolio recorded a loss of $136,000, or 2.9 per cent.
The traditional financial asset portfolio experienced higher losses, of around $209,000, or 5.7 per cent. This fall represents the second largest monthly loss in financial assets, in percentage term after March 2020. In nominal dollar terms, it is the largest monthly loss the financial portfolio has ever incurred.
The combination of these two results means that at a portfolio level, the month was unremarkable, due to rises in the value of Bitcoin significantly offsetting broad losses in traditional financial assets. Yet when only the financial portfolio is considered, the losses were unusually high relative to any events since 2020.
The chart below provides the performance of both the full and ‘financial assets only’ portfolios since the commencement of the journey.
The dominant theme of markets has been volatility and losses, as macro-economic conditions and expectations deteriorate around geopolitical conflict and disruption in the Persian gulf.
While the value of bitcoin holdings have increased around 7 per cent across the month, the value of gold holdings have declined sharply, by 9 per cent. This fall in gold perhaps reflects some forced selling from previously significant state holders, and expectations of higher interest rates to respond to expected inflationary forces associated with oil and supply chain disruptions.
Australian equities have fallen around 7.2 per cent across the month, while global equities have also fallen, by 4.3 per cent.
This picture of generally correlated sharp asset movements is a common marker of financial market stress. As this occurred, however, the correlation between bitcoin holding and the financial portfolio have turned negative, and bitcoin has at least temporarily become a ‘negative beta’ asset, moving in the opposite direction to other financial assets.
As March closes, so does the the first quarter of the financial year. This means that quarterly distributions are being finalised across the ETF and retail fund holdings. Based on past average payouts and some estimated ETF distributions, it is projected that the portfolio will generate around $20,000 in total distributions in this quarter.
The month as previously small additional new investments were made in global equities (through the Vanguard exchange traded fund VGS), in accordance with the decision to regularly reinvest excess distributions and cash holdings.
Fixing the plot: tracking portfolio income, distributions and expenses (2017-2026)
For the past six years portfolio updates have generally included a comparison of portfolio distribution and expenses, inspired by a similar chart in the classic financial independence guide, Your Money or Your Life published in 1992.
More recently, I have added in an estimate of portfolio income using the assumed safe withdrawal rate, and even demonstrated the impact of superannuation assets strictly outside the portfolio on this measure.
Typically this graph is examined on a month by month basis, observing small changes.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – March 2026”
