Amigos, this is another portfolio update, this time being for the month of August 2020.
Portfolio wise, August was a good month. I am slowly distancing from the 100K and approaching to the 110K line, although I am still far below my top high of 195Kish from back in February 2019. As old readers will know, that value wasn’t precisely a real number, however, it would still feel great to get back there — sooner rather than later.
Anyway, I rather pay attention to the present while I plan for the future, so let’s not look back and get straight to today’s numbers update.
Table of Contents
Quick Recap of August Numbers
- Portfolio value: 105,404 € (2.6%) – details HERE
- Monthly Transactions (Deposits – Withdrawals): 482 €
- Monthly growth from investments: 2,658 €
- Passive income: 265 € – details HERE
Green, green and more green that’s the way aha aha, I like it, aha aha! 😎
Nonetheless, stocks have been volatile over the last week. August has historically been a good month for stocks. September and October not that much. I don’t have high expectations for stocks doing well during the next two months, but as I like to say, no one can predict what the market is going to do next, so all possible directions remain on the table.
My monthly and total rate of returns in August break down as follows:
Portfolio Performance
Please note, links containing a star (*) are either affiliate or referral links. P2P lending is a risky business, so you could end up losing all your invested money if you choose to join any of these platforms.
** 20 % discounted as estimate future withdrawal tax payments
Nothing beats my UK pension returns — nothing. It is really a shame that I won’t be able to access this fund until I am at least 57 years old. If it wasn’t for this, I would literally put *all* my money in it, as I believe this is the fastest sure way an employee can build wealth.
Note that the UK pension annualized returns shown are lower than other investments, but that is mainly because I apply a 20% deduction. If I were not applying this, the annual rate would be 45.3%! Mind-blowing!
Another contributor to market gains this month has been the Pound valuation, which increased slightly from 1.11 to 1.12 against the Euro.
Approximately, 75% of my portfolio is based in £. That is a lot and it will increase as I earn £. The valuation of the £ and € has a large impact on my portfolio, and I am starting to feel not so confident about it, as I plan to retire or move back to Spain some day.
I love and enjoy tracking my investments on a monthly basis, not only to keep me accountable but also to show others what is working for me and what is not. I am a man who has learnt the most by looking at examples. It is great and necessary to know the theory, but real examples are the real lessons.
Alternative Investment Portfolio
My alternative investment portfolio gets smaller as time goes by, as I continue withdrawing funds from many platforms.
Most of my passive income this month comes from my P2P investments. That is 237 EUR out of 265 EUR, or put differently, 89% of my monthly passive income, as I got a nice income shot from RateSetter and Crowdestate*.
In August, I didn’t manage to exit any more platforms. In fact, I am actually feeling curious to know more about three other platforms.
Yes, you read right.
The first one is Energize Africa, an ethical investment platform that invests in building solar panels in Africa. I am considering to add this one into my €45K Project Fund together with Abundance to not over concentrate it in a single platform, but I don’t know when.
The second one is Kiva, a mini loans marketplace that provides financial resources to business from all around the world, but paying attention to countries such as Africa and South America among others. European DG wrote a good review and shared his experience after 5 years.
And the third one is actually a new platform, Qardus*. I haven’t dug much into this one just yet, as you need to register in order to get access to the projects and I haven’t had time to do so. What I like from this platform is that it’s Ethical & Sharia Compliant, which I found fascinating!
Anyway, let’s have a look at my current platforms.
From 1 to 9, these are classified by my level of contentment.
1. Crowdestate
I know some investors who are not happy with Crowdestate* due to some defaulted loans. My experience so far is different as I managed to sell all loans on the secondary before they defaulted. Maybe that was just luck, but it doesn’t hide the fact of me being happy with the results I’ve got so far.
Two of my investments exited successfully in August:
- Klaose tn. 12, 14, Tartu 51013 (II)), giving a final IRR of 10.9% (11% expected).
- Marguse Spordibaas, Nüpli, Otepää (III), giving a final IRR of 10.9% (11% expected).
As I am happy to keep my Crowdestate portfolio close to 2K, I reinvested the freed cash into newer mortgage secured development loans paying close to 11% per annum.
2. Estateguru
Things keep running fairly well at Estateguru‘s*.
My portfolio consists of 40 loans (44 last month), where 34 are being paid on time and 6 are late (6 last month). I have no defaulted loans so far and withdrawals are processed on the very next day. It is a shame there’s a 1 EUR fee per withdrawal execution though. I only withdraw once a month to avoid paying too much on fees.
If you want to give it a try, please consider using this link and get a 0.5% bonus on your investments made during the first three months.
3. Robo.cash
Robo.cash* gave no income this month. All my remaining loans are long term and being paid on time.
Robocash Group, the mother holding of Robo.cash P2P platform, published audited financial statements for 2017-2019, and the hell, they looked great, but the ones I’d be interesting to read are the 2020 ones, especially with the Covid-19 play. However, the fact of being audited gives me a vote of confidence, I must say.
For the time being. Despite things going well, this is another platform I plan to leave to simplify things out.
4. Crowdestor
I have a good feeling about Crowdestor*, but that’s all I have, just a feeling that can change overnight.
Out of 19 loans I’ve invested so far, 1 has exited succesfully, and three are delayed.
Fertilizer Export Financing is delayed since June. Two other loans did not distribute payments in August; a renewable energy project, and a loan to a beverage distributor.
I was glad to see that Crowdestor will acquire a licensed payment service provider based in the Czech Republic, providing a segregated account to investors.
5. RateSetter
RateSetter is having a tough year as it was forced to halve interest rates for the rest of 2020 in an attempt to stabilize their provision fund. Obviously this is better than facing bankruptcy or stopping all payments as Grupeer or Property Partner did.
The key risk indicators on the website still show an interest coverage ratio of 67%, which is still quite low. This is a fundamental ratio to watch, as anything below the 100% means that the provision fund isn’t big enough to cover all interest payments in a case of default.
What is worrying is that the ratios don’t seem to be improving even after halving interest. No Bueno!
I’ve been over a year invested in RateSetter, so the welcoming £100 bonus was paid into my Access Account in August.
I finally pulled the trigger on leaving this platform, but to my surprise, I am finding a massive cash liquidity queue:
Ratesetter is currently offering a £100 bonus when investing a minimum of £1000 if using my referral link. If I were in new investor shoes, I am not sure I’d risk it, but if interested, email me at tony (at) onemillionjourney (dot) com or a message me on Twitter.
6. Housers
Housers is as disappointing as usual, but it got a bit better in August as one investment paid some delayed interests (Dulcinea).
But still, the big picture has not changed, and that is exactly what the monthly income chart on my Housers page shows.
In addition, vague communication and failure to keep inventors informed leave this platform in a really bad position.
7. Property Partner
Property Partner has extended the suspension of all dividend payments to the 30th of September.
That means that my money isn’t making any money, which sucks.
8. Fast Invest
With regard to the withdrawing issues, no improvements have been made from part of Fast Invest. I still did not get any of my pending withdrawals,
However, it seems April withdrawals requests are being paid to investors. Mine is from the end of June. Seeing something is happening gives me some hope.
Dividend Portfolio
August was also a good month for my dividend portfolio.
This is the outlook of my holdings at the end of the month:
As I am getting more and more Trading 212 free shares (thanks again for using my link), I decided to rearrange the look of my portfolio.
Portfolio value increased +2.5%, which is great. It also seems to be doing fairly good during the recent tech drop.
Wells Fargo, Invesco and ExxonMobil are painful to look at.
Warren Buffet has recently announced that sold all his remaining Wells Fargo shares. That was a painful move, as a good reason why I bought Wells Fargo is because is (was) a popular stock among gurus.
Invesco CEO bought $3M in common shares, a move I am glad to see. The share price has done well since then.
ExxonMobil was pulled out of the Dow Jones after being a member for 92 years. It was not good news in terms of share price, but I remain helpful for recovery, as I see the management making moves to protect shareholders dividend income.
Dividend Payments
Four companies or ETFs paid dividend to me in August:
- AT&T (T): 11.67€
- Mastercard (MA): 0.52€
- National Grid (NG): 0.35€
- iShares Developed Markets Property Yield UCITS ETF (IWDP): 8.86€
Total Income in August: 21.4 €
New Holdings And Purchases
- AT&T (T) 0.43 shares @ $29.97 *DIVIDEND REINVESTING*
- iShares Developed Markets Property Yield UCITS ETF (IWDP) 0.6 shares @ p1718 *DIVIDEND REINVESTING*
- AT&T (T) 2.33 shares @ $29.57
- Under Armour (UAA) 2 shares @ $9.71 *FREE SHARES*
- Under Armour (UAA) 1 share @ $9.99 *FREE SHARE*
- Under Armour (UAA) 1 share @ $10.13 *FREE SHARE*
- Under Armour (UAA) 1 share @ $9.92 *FREE SHARE*
- National Grid (NG) 1 share @ p897.8 *FREE SHARE*
- National Grid (NG) 1 share @ p903.4 *FREE SHARE*
- Walt Disney (DIS) 5 shares @ $132 *SOLD*
In August, I didn’t purchase any new stock. I just reinvested dividends and added a few more shares on AT&T. I also sold 5 shares of Disney at a profit to lower down weighting in my portfolio after a quick rebound followed by the Wall Street positivism on Disney + results.
However, as shown in the image above, about 30% of Disney’s revenues come from their parks. This side of the business has been largely impacted by coronavirus outbreaks. Similar to aero lines, it is challenging predicting how this matter will evolve.
That, and the fact that dividends were suspended makes this stock less attractive to me.
On the other hand, Disney + does indeed look good, and I also love this company and what it does. So, things would have to get atrocious before I sell all my shares.
The €45K Project Fund
Another month, another £54 was saved as a non-smoker and put in the 45K Project Fund.
There are currently no new interesting projects to me on the Abundance platform, so my cash is sitting but not invested.
And that is the reason why I am having a look around to add another ethical investing platform.
So far, I have recovered 2.6% of my loss = 1,173.5 EUR
43,826.5 EUR left to go.
Related content: How I FIRED 45k with algo trading, Investing Ethically, Recovering €45K through Investing in Myself First
This is it for this month, I’ll be back in October. Wherever you are I hope you have a great month. And cheers for reading, you are a star :D.