The Athenians preserved the boat—a thirty-oared ship—on which Theseus sailed with his companions and came back safely until the time of Demetrius of Phalerus, changing out the older wood and replacing it with strong, new parts until the ship became a famous example to philosophers of the problem of growth. Some say that it remained the same ship, others claim it did not.
Plutarch, Life of Theseus, XXIII.i
This is my fifty-second monthly portfolio update. I complete this regular update to check progress against my goal.
Portfolio goal
My objective is to reach a portfolio of $2,585,000 by 31 July 2022. This would produce a real annual income of about $90,500 (in 2021 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.5 per cent.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $798,662 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $43,783 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $80,032 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $104,634 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $301,213 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $131,409 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $270,303 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $1,812 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $5,929 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $6,276 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $100,378 |
| Secured physical gold | $16,153 |
| Plenti (P2P lending) | $4,565 |
| Bitcoin | $848,070 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $19,793 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,180 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,533 |
| Total portfolio value | $2,740,725 (+$251,033) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 33.6% |
| Global shares | 18.5% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.6% |
| International small companies | 2.0% |
| Total international shares | 22.1% |
| Total shares | 55.7% (-19.3%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.8% |
| International bonds | 6.1% |
| Total bonds | 8.9% (-6.1%) |
| Gold | 4.3% |
| Bitcoin | 30.9% |
| Gold and alternatives | 35.2% (+25.2%) |
Presented visually, the chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month has seen a continued appreciation of Bitcoin dominating virtually all other portfolio developments, a trend that has been firmly in place since October of last year.
The value of Bitcoin holdings rising by $197,000 has pushed the portfolio above the financial independence target goal set three just months ago. In short, this has delivered an outcome in March that was intended to be only reached at the end July of next year. So the portfolio goal has been passed. Yet the gain underpinning this achievement is contingent and highly provisional.
Bitcoin’s value in the portfolio rose by another 30 per cent across the month, being the major contributor to the overall portfolio growing by $251,000. This is both the largest ever monthly change, and growth, of the entire journey.
The performance of other assets was modest in scale by comparison. Equities moved ahead this month, with global shares (5.8 per cent) performing slightly better than Australian equities (3.2 per cent). Both gold and bonds slightly decreased in value.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – March 2021”