The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. Housman
This is my ninety-second 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 | $855,315 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $43,951 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $77,576 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $90,252 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $542,025 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $735,030 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $314,298 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,100 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $9,375 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $9,036 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $167,038 |
| Secured physical gold | $26,286 |
| Bitcoin | $1,127,990 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $24,310 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,980 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,731 |
| Plenti Capital Notes Market Loan | $43,000 |
| Total portfolio value | $4,076,293 (+$177,439) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 30.3% |
| Global shares | 27.9% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.1% |
| International small companies | 1.4% |
| Total international shares | 30.5% |
| Total shares | 60.8.% (-19.2%) |
| Total property securities | 0.1% (+0.1%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.8% |
| International bonds | 3.9% |
| Total bonds | 6.7% (+1.7%) |
| Gold | 4.7% |
| Bitcoin | 27.7% |
| Gold and alternatives | 32.4% (+17.4%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
The portfolio reached the highest level in its history this month, with a growth of 4.6 per cent, or around $177,000.
This has been achieved in significant part by an increase in the value of Bitcoin holding, with holdings in equity making up the rest of the movement through the period.
Even ascribing no value at all to the entirety of the Bitcoin holdings, the financial portfolio still remains about the portfolio target.
The monthly movement of various asset classes outside of the Bitcoin holdings were not particularly significant, with increases of 4 per cent in Australian equities and slightly larger increases in the value of gold holdings (around 6 per cent).
An interesting feature to note is that quite frequently, directionally, the subcomponents of the entire portfolio has tended to move in a correlated manner, with this month, for example, bonds, equities and gold all advancing – even if with different strengths.
This month, the same as last, I invested some surplus funds that would in the past have been invested in equity index funds, into a further purchase of Plenti Capital Notes, at an approximate yield of 9.0 per cent.
As previously highlighted, yields of this kind are not available without a material risk to the safe return of the capital. At this stage and in my personal circumstances, however, this is a useful relatively short-term vehicle for funds I am happy to put at some risk, and which I have no need to access. Importantly, it represents only around 1 per cent of portfolio holdings.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Report – July 2024”