The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
Winston Churchill
This is my eightieth monthly portfolio update. I complete this regular update to check progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to achieve and maintain a portfolio of at least $2,750,000 by 31 December 2024 or earlier. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $94,800 (in 2023 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.45 per cent.
A secondary focus will be achieving the minimum equity target of $2,200,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $776,574 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $40,530 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $72,853 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $87,316 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $404,668 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $592,416 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $286,699 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,270 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $7,513 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $9,936 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $131,560 |
| Secured physical gold | $20,805 |
| Bitcoin | $488,404 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $21,631 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,549 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,451 |
| Total portfolio value | $2,951,175 (+$22,458) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 35.1% |
| Global shares | 32.4% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.4% |
| International small companies | 1.8% |
| Total international shares | 35.7% |
| Total shares | 70.8% (-9.2%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.2% |
| International bonds | 5.1% |
| Total bonds | 7.3% (+2.3%) |
| Gold | 5.2% |
| Bitcoin | 16.5% |
| Gold and alternatives | 21.7% (+6.7%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month the financial independence portfolio increased modestly at a ‘headline’ figures level, with an increase of 0.8 per cent, or around $22,000.
What may be easily missed, however, is that this relatively modest headline movement compared to last month obscures a set of wider incremental changes that continue to subtly reshape the portfolio from within.
As an example, looking at only the non-Bitcoin ‘financial portfolio’ shows a growth of around $48,000 – which is actually a greater level of expansion than the equivalent movement in financial assets last month. The equity portfolio has advanced to 95 per cent of its eventual target, or $2.09 million.
So beneath the apparent steadiness of the monthly portfolio value this month there sits some emerging, and no doubt some ebbing or changeable, trends.
Australian equities advanced around 2.0 per cent in capital growth terms through the month, while international equities posted similar gains of around 2.2 per cent over the same period.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Report – July 2023”