But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
Longfellow, The Tides Rises, the Tide Falls
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
This is my ninetieth 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 $2,870,000. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $99,000 (in 2024 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 $2,300,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $836,087 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $43,023 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $76,120 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $88,343 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $519,490 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $705,525 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $300,417 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $1,849 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $7,855 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $8,928 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $158,241 |
| Secured physical gold | $24,981 |
| Bitcoin | $1,143,698 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $23,177 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,926 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,549 |
| Plenti Capital Notes Market Loan | $17,000 |
| Total portfolio value | $3,963,209 (+$90,350) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 30.0% |
| Global shares | 27.7% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.2% |
| International small companies | 1.5% |
| Total international shares | 30.3% |
| Total shares | 60.3% (-19.7%) |
| Total property securities | 0.1% (+0.1%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.2% |
| International bonds | 3.9% |
| Total bonds | 6.1% (+1.1%) |
| Gold | 4.6% |
| Bitcoin | 28.9% |
| Gold and alternatives | 33.5% (+18.5%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month delivered a small lift in the overall value of the financial independence portfolio, with gains of around $90,000 or 2.3 per cent.
This partially reverses the losses of last month, leaving the portfolio slightly below the value reached at the end of March. The portfolio continues to be strongly ahead – by around $1 million – of its position twelve months ago.
Australian and international shares performed modestly well over the month, growing in value around 1.2 per cent.
Gold fell slightly over this month, following a strong previous performance. In fact, over the past 5 years, gold has been the best performing of the traditional asset classes in the portfolio.
Bitcoin grew in value by around 6.5 per cent, while bond holdings also mildly recovered, returning around 0.4 per cent.
For a brief period at the beginning of the month, the Australian component of the equity portfolio fell below its target level (of $1.15 million). In response, new purchases of the Vanguard ETF (VAS) were made.
The portfolio remains above its formal headline target by some margin. The financial portfolio, excluding Bitcoin, remains around $50,000 below the final target level of $2.87 million.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Report – May 2024”