Monthly Portfolio Update – August 2022

The wind sits within the shoulder of your sail

And you are stay’d for.

Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I: Scene 3

This is my sixty-ninth 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$714,600
Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund$38,340
Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund$69,879
Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund$88,511
Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS)$359,644
Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS)$359,544
Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200)$271,514
Telstra shares (TLS)$2,116
Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG)$5,891
NIB Holdings shares (NHF)$9,816
Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX)$112,897
Secured physical gold$17,951
Bitcoin$327,060
Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio)$19,478
Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio)$3,121
BrickX (P2P rental real estate)$4,632
Total portfolio value$2,404,994
(-$36,598)

Asset allocation

Australian shares39.5%
Global shares28.9%
Emerging market shares1.6%
International small companies2.1%
Total international shares32.6%
Total shares72.1% (-7.9%)
Total property securities0.2% (+0.2%)
Australian bonds2.6%
International bonds6.0%
Total bonds8.6% (+3.6%)
Gold5.4%
Bitcoin13.6%
Gold and alternatives19.0% (+4.0%)

Presented visually, the chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.

Chart - Asset Allocation

Comments

This month overall losses of around $36,000 were sustained in the value of the portfolio, reducing the portfolio by around 1.5 per cent in total.

With this outcome, over a third of the increases of July were essentially lost. Over the past 12 months, the majority of months have now registered as delivering portfolio losses.

The portfolio now sits below the overall revised portfolio goal of $2.62 million at the end of the month, as it has since the end of May.

Chart - Monthly portfolio value

Losses occurred broadly across much of the portfolio through the month.

Bitcoin holdings were reduced in value by around 14 per cent, as the prospect of higher interest rates were absorbed by financial markets. These losses were principally responsible for the total fall in portfolio value.

The value of international equities also fell from some initial gains within the month, to end lower, by around 0.8 per cent. Australian shares managed to end the month around 1.0 per cent higher. Bonds also fell in value sharply, by 2.4 per cent and gold holdings fell by 0.7 per cent also.

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