Cheating my way to 110k

A new milestone! It was back in May that my portfolio clocked it’s first 6 figure rating and on Wednesday 18^th was the first time it reached 110k, or 111 094 euros to be exact. I also record my net worth although I don't find it such a valuable metric as it's not "edible", but it's hovering somewhere around 133 000 euros at the moment.

Although I have a bit of a confession to make. I cheated a bit! But only myself, I moved a couple of grands from my usage money to my portfolio and may have to move it back at some point. So, the figure is perhaps a little bit inflated.

Between first 100k and first 110k was exactly 167 days, so my portfolio gained a really nice 60 euros per day. Savings since 100k were 6 381 euros and gains were 3 742 euros within that period. With time the proportion of portfolio gains should dominate savings but such a trend is not emerging yet.

On Wednesday my portfolio looked like this:

	6.1.2017	10.5.2017	18.10.2017	change
Savings account	7575	7596	2000	-5596
Passive funds, broad	30172	33599	35844	+2245
Passive funds, niches	9734	11330	12902	+1572
Actively managed funds	6603	7499	8279	+780
Listed stocks	24930	32872	43036	+10164
Unlisted stocks	5250	5250	4500	-750
Fixed income	100	100	100	0
Cash	6012	4093	4434	+341
Total	90376	102337	111094	+8757

Year-to-date my portfolio is up about 7% so the year has been okay but not great. The lowering dollar valuation has hurt my portfolio to some extent as I hold plenty of US equities. I also have to note that I am a bit worried with the bull market just continuing and continuing on, Dow and S&P making not all-time-highs and VIX making all-time-lows. Just doesn’t add up!

I think my individual stock picks are getting a bit out of hand. I’ll need to try and limit my purchases to indexes for now. I also notice I’m checking my accounts rather often which isn’t a good sign. I’m thinking about adding trailing stops to my positions but at least Nordnet doesn’t support that.

Six Figures!

Andreas Levers: Hangar 6

Wow, it's been a long time since I last updated the blog. During the Spring I was a bit overwhelmed with my work load at the hamster wheel and also experienced a little bit of a writer's block. Being a procrastinator, starting writing or anything is always a small hurdle for me.

Since my last postback in January my portfolio has made a new record number. Six Figures! Let me say that again: SIX FIGURES! It now takes six beautiful numbers to write the number of euros in my portfolio. Here's the details:

	06.01.17	10.05.17	change
Savings account	7575	7596	+21
Passive funds, broad	30172	33599	+3427
Passive funds, niches	9734	11330	+1596
Actively managed funds	6603	7499	+896
Listed stocks	24930	32872	+7942
Unlisted stocks	5250	5250	0
Fixed income	100	100	0
Cash	6012	4093	-1919
Total	90376	102337	+11961

I think some reflexion is suitable here. My savings and investment practice started 2011 when I started a ”real job” with a proper steady salary. I just simply kept my standard of living at the same level without adding more consumption.

Since then, about six and a half years have passed, and my portfolio has grown from essentially zero to six figures. During these years I've saved about a 1000 euros per month, altogether around 75 thousand euros. The remaining 25 grand has been generated my being in the market, mostly as capital gains and some as dividends also (about 20k and 5k, respectively). The stats on the previous years look something like this:

year	savings	cum. savings	gains	cum. gains	portfolio value
2010	35	995			1 000
2011	9 936	10 931	-1 017	-1 017	9 919
2012	12 234	23 165	2 508	1 491	24 661
2013	2 424	25 589	2 067	3 558	29 152
2014	12 702	38 291	6 012	9 570	47 866
2015	12 167	50 458	3 786	13 356	63 819
2016	16 128	66 586	9 242	22 598	89 189
2017, until May	8 319	74 905	4 842	27 440	102 350

Year 2013 stands out as a year of less savings but that isn't the real picture as that year I bought my apartment and thus couldn't contribute to my portfolio but did pay approximate 10 thousand as the down payment.

Going forward I hope to be writing more often. BR, Jukka.

Last stop before the big one

Little league 11 by Frank Pierson

90k! What? Already? Yes, just 2 months after making 80k, I've gained my next 10k to 90k. That was super quick – I hadn't expected to make 90k so soon.

A big part this 10k was generated by the market. Since the 80k in November, I've made contributions of around 4 400 euros and the market has returned around 6 800 euros. Thank you Mr Market!

...or should that be Mr Trump? The last 2 months' ”trump rally” has been great for the portfolio. It only took 57 days to go from 80k to 90k!

Here's my portfolio breakdown as of 6th of January 2017 (actually the first 90k was on the 3rd but I didn't record my portfolio breakdown then):

	10.11.16	06.01.17	change
Savings account	5043	7575	+2532
Passive funds, broad	26698	30172	+3474
Passive funds, niches	8411	9734	+1323
Actively managed funds	6579	6603	+24
Listed stocks	24954	24930	-24
Unlisted stocks	5250	5250	0
Fixed income	100	100	0
Cash	4258	6012	+1754
Total	81293	90376	+9083

I don't think it is realistic or probably to think that I'd make the next 10k, 6 figures, so soon. Actually my guess is for the markets to remain rather flat for the next year, or possibly correct down. Schiller CAPE is currently over 28.

Here's to the Eighties!

Typewriter, Schreibmaschine by Frank Jakobi

A couple of days ago I made a new milestone by getting a new first digit for my portfolio. On Monday the 7th of November, I recorded, for the first time ever, a portfolio value over 80k euros or 80 035 euros to be exact.

This is only 164 days after making my previous milestone of 70k back in May. What? That's less than half a year which leaves me a bit surprised actually but this is a surprise I'm quite happy to handle.

I didn't record an exact portfolio breakdown on Monday so I'll do that here now. Donald Trump just won the presidency yesterday on Wednesday and there's an ongoing market rally which may inflate these numbers a bit.

	29.05.2016	10.11.2016	change
Savings account	7101	5043	-2058
Passive funds, broad	22325	26698	+4373
Passive funds, niches	7089	8411	+1322
Actively managed funds	5310	6579	+1269
Listed stocks	19286	24954	+5668
Unlisted stocks	5250	5250	0
Fixed income	100	100	0
Cash	3700	4258	+558
Total	70161	81293	+11132

From the portfolio breakdown it's easy to see that since May, I have been buying quite many individual stocks. Should perhaps limit that because I do believe the market to be at least somewhat efficient and that passive funds are likelier winners over the long term.

Also, my net worth also just made 6 figures and is currently at around 101k. However, I don't really pay much attention to my net worth as my apartment is my only noteworthy asset outside of my portfolio and I couldn't really sell my apartment for as long as I wan't to live in it. Further, I consider my apartment perhaps more as a liability than an asset, so I'll just stick to focusing on my investment portfolio.

Anyways, next stop: the nineties! :)

What's the speed of my money?

Speed by Patrik Nygren

In my previous post "Reached 70k!" I mentioned that I’d broken 70k euros in my portfolio. I have set up a script that records the value of my portfolio every day so I decided to dig into my data a little bit.

I have previously not taken note of crossing these kind of milestones but I decided to do that in retrospect. I wanted to find out on which dates I have reached my previous 10ks. Here’s the data:

Portfolio value	1st occurrence
0	1.1.2011
10000	5.12.2011
20000	6.11.2012
30000	25.4.2013
30000 #2	2.5.2014
40000	3.11.2014
50000	22.1.2015
60000	4.11.2015
70000	27.5.2016

30k is listed twice because after I made it there the first time, I bought an apartment and took the down payment, around 10k euros from my portfolio. At that time in my life I also did some other purchases for the apartment. Getting back to 30k again took some time.

By the power of compounding, the accumulation of money should get faster. Did that happen? To some extent maybe yes but there’s not enough data to tell, really. 

Portfolio value	Days
0 to 10k	339
10k to 20k	337
20k to 1st 30k	170
1st 30k to 2nd 30k	371
1st 30k to 40k	541
2nd 30k to 40k	185
40k to 50k	80
50k to 60k	286
60k to 70k	205

The average addition of 10k took a little less than 250 calendar days (about 40 euros per day) but the data is quite sloppy. There's just too much variation to gain insights from these data, well, at least any extrapolation will be hard.

What jumps out from the data is 10k number 5, from 40k to 50k only took 80 days. Wowza! That was from the 3rd of November 2014 to the 22nd of January 2015. I tried to back track what had happened. The S&P 500 was basically flat during that time while the Finnish OMXH was up about 3.5%. I checked my contributions to the portfolio from that period and they were around 5k so another 5k came from my holdings. 

During that time I was holding a bunch of American equity ETFs and the EUR/USD exchange rate went from 1.250 on 16th of December to 1.147 on 22nd of January. This seemed to be magic ticket. Actually the next day, 23rd of January it was already at 1.1234 and my portfolio had made another 1000 euros. Unfortunately I can’t take credit for an exchange rate change and even more unfortunately it will also fluctuate in the other directions as times go by.

Reached 70k!

Wikimedia Commons

I’m excited! Today marks another milestone for me as my portfolio is showing for the first time ever, a number starting with the number 7. 70 161 euros to be exact.

This owes thanks to the recent revival of markets. Performance wise my portfolio has now reached about 0% YTD. Which, let’s be honest, is not good but a lot better than the about -12% I was looking at in mid February. Contributions to the portfolio YTD are around 5k. Here's my time-weighted return (TWR) chart YTD:

The breakdown of my current portfolio is as follows:

Savings account	7101
Passive funds, broad	22325
Passive funds, niches	7089
Actively managed funds	5310
Listed stocks	19286
Unlisted stocks	5250
Fixed income	100
Cash	3700
Total	70161

Now, onto making that first number '8'!