Time forks perpetually towards innumerable futures
Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths
This is my sixty-fourth 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 $2,620,000 through 2022. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $91,600 (in 2022 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.5 per cent.
A secondary focus through 2022 will be achieving the minimum equity target of $2,100,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $801,655 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $42,562 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $76,143 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $93,082 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $400,699 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $305,098 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $300,813 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,110 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $5,549 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $7,632 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $116,270 |
| Secured physical gold | $18,552 |
| Plenti (P2P lending) | $28 |
| Bitcoin | $697,880 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $20,594 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,329 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,707 |
| Total portfolio value | $2,896,703 (+$190,975) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 36.3% |
| Global shares | 23.5% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.5% |
| International small companies | 1.9% |
| Total international shares | 26.9% |
| Total shares | 63.3% (-16.7%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.4% |
| International bonds | 5.4% |
| Total bonds | 7.8% (+2.8%) |
| Gold | 4.7% |
| Bitcoin | 24.1% |
| Gold and alternatives | 28.7% (+13.7%) |
Presented visually, the chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month the portfolio has increased by around $191,000, or around 7.1 per cent, which is the strongest performance in the past five months. This breaks the run of two relatively flat monthly outcomes since the beginning of the year.
Stepping back, this growth means that the portfolio now sits at approximately double the level reached three years ago, even though it has only just recovered to the level reach at the end of last August.
The portfolio continues to be above the revised portfolio goal of $2.62 million.
A major reversal in the price of Bitcoin occurred over the past month, with its value rising around 19 per cent. This has delivered over half of the total portfolio gains made since last month.
The other significant source of growth was a 7.0 per cent advance in the value of Australian shares. Despite a poor start to the month, international equity investments gained around 2.2 per cent. This brought the value of total equity holdings to above $1.8 million, returning equities overall to close to their highest ever level.
By contrast, the value of gold assets held fell by 3.5 per cent, and bond holdings also suffered significant capital losses – of 2.5 per cent – as yields rise. This continues to leave the overall bond portfolio at the lowest levels last experienced in 2016.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – March 2022”