Let’s withdraw; and meet the time as it seeks us
Shakespeare, Cymbeline Act 4, Scene 3
This is my seventy-first 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 $2,620,000 through 2022. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $91,600 (in 2022 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.5 per cent.
A secondary focus through 2022 will be achieving the minimum equity target of $2,100,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $711,405 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $37,922 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $68,711 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $85,661 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $351,153 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $426,221 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $265,971 |
| Telstra shares (TLS) | $2,089 |
| Insurance Australia Group shares (IAG) | $6,208 |
| NIB Holdings shares (NHF) | $8,004 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $115,668 |
| Secured physical gold | $18,351 |
| Bitcoin | $356,030 |
| Raiz app (Aggressive portfolio) | $18,735 |
| Spaceship Voyager app (Index portfolio) | $3,162 |
| BrickX (P2P rental real estate) | $4,639 |
| Total portfolio value | $2,479,930 (+$138,908) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 37.6% |
| Global shares | 30.7% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.6% |
| International small companies | 2.0% |
| Total international shares | 34.2% |
| Total shares | 71.8% (-8.2%) |
| Total property securities | 0.2% (+0.2%) |
| Australian bonds | 2.5% |
| International bonds | 5.7% |
| Total bonds | 8.2% (+3.2%) |
| Gold | 5.4% |
| Bitcoin | 14.4% |
| Gold and alternatives | 19.8% (+4.8%) |
Presented visually, the chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the portfolio.
Comments
This month reversed two months of falling portfolio values, with a sharp increase of around $139,000. The portfolio grew nearly 6 per cent in this expansion, its highest rate of growth in more than six months.
Despite this positive movement, the portfolio still is at a lower absolute level than achieved in early 2021, and is more than $540,000 lower than at the same point a year ago.
Consequently, the portfolio continues to track below the overall revised portfolio goal of $2.62 million.
The major sources of portfolio growth are clear – a recovery in equity markets both globally, and domestically. Australian shares increased in value around 4.3 per cent over the past month. Globally, the largely unhedged equities portfolio grew in value by around 7.2 per cent.
Bonds were volatile in their movements this month, but overall were flat in total performance by month end.
During the past month, Bitcoin has been peculiarly stable, aside from a small increase over the last week or so. Through the last two months, the price of Bitcoin actually registered the remarkable achievement of being less volatile than the benchmark US S&P500 index.
Over the month, Bitcoin holdings increased around 6.8 per cent in value, while the value of gold held remained essentially flat.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – October 2022”