There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away, nearby and invisible
Maria Sabina
This is my eighty-first 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 | $771,760 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $40,305 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $72,510 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $87,091 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $413,503 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $600,036 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $284,603 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,137 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $7,373 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $9,954 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $134,913 |
| Secured physical gold | $21,323 |
| Bitcoin | $466,898 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $21,323 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,560 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,455 |
| Total portfolio value | $2,941,776 (-$9,399) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 35.4% |
| Global shares | 32.7% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.4% |
| International small companies | 1.8% |
| Total international shares | 36.0% |
| Total shares | 71.4% (-8.6%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.2% |
| International bonds | 5.1% |
| Total bonds | 7.3% (+2.3%) |
| Gold | 5.3% |
| Bitcoin | 15.9% |
| Gold and alternatives | 21.2% (+6.2%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month saw a small loss of around $9,000 in the financial independence portfolio, equivalent to a contraction of about 0.3 per cent.
This continues the period of relatively muted month-to-month volatility in the portfolio, with the portfolio sitting at an essentially unchanged level since the beginning of the financial year.
There was a relatively mixed experience across the portfolio components in August.
The sharpest percentage falls in value were experienced in Bitcoin (at -4.4 per cent). Some legal appeal developments in the United States around possible US ETF offerings helped reduce earlier larger falls. By constrast, gold securities increased in value by around 2.5 per cent.
The large equity component of the portfolio also demonstrated this mixed result.
Australian equities fell in value approximately 0.7 per cent through the month, while continued strength in global equities and a weaker exchange rate produced a capital return of around 1.3 per cent across the same period for international share holdings.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Report – August 2023”