Prudently the god covers the outcome of the future in dark night
Horace, Odes, III.xxix
This is my sixtieth 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 | $828,192 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $44,284 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $79,775 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $99,241 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $375,442 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $273,120 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $287,049 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,169 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $5,612 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $8,400 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $113,675 |
| Secured physical gold | $18,243 |
| Plenti (P2P lending) | $531 |
| Bitcoin | $875,660 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $20,909 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,598 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,988 |
| Total portfolio value | $3,040,888 (+$20,033) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 33.7% |
| Global shares | 21.8% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.5% |
| International small companies | 1.9% |
| Total international shares | 25.2% |
| Total shares | 58.9% (-16.1%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.4% |
| International bonds | 5.4% |
| Total bonds | 7.8% (-7.2%) |
| Gold | 4.3% |
| Bitcoin | 28.8% |
| Gold and alternatives | 33.1% (+23.1%) |
Presented visually, the chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month the financial independence portfolio gained around $20,000, maintaining its positive momentum over the past two months.
Though this represented modest portfolio growth in percentage terms – of 0.7 per cent – it pushed forward progress further above the recently reached threshold of $3.0 million.
The monthly movement across November means that the portfolio has advanced in 10 out of the last 12 months.
Through the month there was generally muted and offsetting movements beneath the ‘headline’ portfolio value.
Australian shares and bonds remained relatively stable through the month. The value of gold holdings increased by around 5.6 per cent to reach the highest value in around a year. Coincidentally, international equities also advanced by 5.6 per cent.
Bitcoin declined by around 3.3 per cent through the month, having briefly reached new highs early in the month.
As a result of these varying cross-currents, the portfolio generally ended up fairly close to where it began.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – November 2021”