Far-called, our navies melt away.
Rudyard Kipling, Recessional
This is my one hundred and eighth 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 $3,000,000. This should be capable of producing an annual income from total portfolio returns of about $103,500 (in 2025 dollars).
This portfolio objective is based on an assumed safe withdrawal rate of 3.45 per cent.
A secondary focus will be maintaining the minimum equity target of $2,400,000.
Portfolio summary
| Vanguard Lifestrategy High Growth Fund | $974,253 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Growth Fund | $49,217 |
| Vanguard Lifestrategy Balanced Fund | $85,131 |
| Vanguard Diversified Bonds Fund | $94,711 |
| Vanguard Australian Shares ETF (VAS) | $657,871 |
| Vanguard International Shares ETF (VGS) | $999,852 |
| Betashares Australia 200 ETF (A200) | $335,608 |
| Gold ETF (GOLD.ASX) | $285,379 |
| Bitcoin | $1,546,572 |
| Plenti Capital Notes | $84,000 |
| Financial portfolio value (excluding Bitcoin) | $3,566,022 (-$22,625) |
| Total portfolio value | $5,112,594 (-$342,107) |
Asset allocation
| Australian shares | 27.1% |
| Global shares | 28.2% |
| Emerging market shares | 1.0% |
| International small companies | 1.3% |
| Total international shares | 30.6% |
| Total shares | 57.6% (-22.4%) |
| Australian bonds | 3.1% |
| International bonds | 3.4% |
| Total bonds | 6.5% (+1.5%) |
| Gold | 5.6% |
| Bitcoin | 30.3% |
| Gold and alternatives | 35.8% (+20.8%) |
Presented visually, the pie chart below is a high-level view of the current asset allocation of the full portfolio.
Comments
The portfolio fell this month by around 6.3 per cent or $340,000 – the sixth largest falls in percentage terms on record, and the second largest in nominal dollars.
This was overwhelmingly due to a sharp fall in the price of Bitcoin, which fell 17 per cent, while Australian equity losses also contributed at the margin.
As a result, the financial portfolio (excluding Bitcoin) suffered its first reverses since March of this year.
The chart below sets out the performance of both the full and ‘financial assets only’ portfolios since the commencement of the journey.
Market movements this month have been driven by weakening confidence in future US, and Australian, interest rate easings. Another intriguing development has been the continuing unwinding of traditionally low bond yields in Japan, a phenomenon which has exerted a downward pressure on interest rates across global markets over the past decade or longer.
Australian equities fell by 2.7 per cent, and global equities also contracted slightly by 0.2 per cent. Gold continued to perform strongly, up around 4.8 per cent over the month, to the highest level recorded in the portfolio.
This month also saw some small portfolio adjustments, falling into the category of simplification and streamlining.
The smaller individual share parcels held in Telstra, IAG and NIB have been eliminated, and proceeds reinvested in the broader ETF portfolio, through an additional investment in the Vanguard global shares ETF (VGS).
While representing my first equity market investments – in the case of Telstra – the holdings were essentially immaterial compared to the rest of the portfolio, making up collectively 0.4 per cent of the portfolio by value, while representing 3 of 13 separate portfolio holdings held at the beginning of the month.
A minor effect of the changes is to effectively reduce a slight overweighting to these directly held equities at the portfolio level. As an example, the within Australian equities ETF holdings of Telstra (of around $30,000) are around ten times larger than the direct holding which has been exited.
These changes continue the journey of simplification underway for the past year, through which the total number of individually managed portfolio holdings has fallen from 17 to 10, or by around 40 per cent.
The purpose of these changes is to simplify record-keeping, portfolio tracking and management of holdings that essentially had no prospect of positively affecting risk-adjusted returns. The exercise is not costless, as an indication, the reinvestment of these funds back into even low cost ETFs will incur an additional net cost of $23 per year.
Further future simplification is possible, but will need be be considered carefully from a capital gains tax management and efficiency perspective.
Celestial fix: the ‘all assets’ perspective on asset allocation and passive income estimates
This record is focused on reporting on the goal of building and maintaining a portfolio capable of supporting a chosen passive income goal enabling financial independence over decades ahead.
Beyond the narrow financial independence portfolio, however, there are some assets which inevitably and increasingly come into view as relevant for future planning.
Continue reading “Monthly Portfolio Update – November 2025”