Portfolio Update [March ’21]

As I mentioned in my February Portfolio Update – the goal is to keep my share returns growing at an average of 10%. Or as close to it as possible. Well, I am happy to report that March is one month where that happened. Currently sitting pretty at 10.3% up on my $19,000 something investment. Sure, it’s not the 800% of GameStop, or the 3,000% of Bitcoin, but a modest 10% growth year-on-year will lead to a comfortable retirement. Something I like to keep in mind is the faster it can gain, the quicker it can lose.

This means that even though I am aggressively investing in shares, my investments are not all that aggressive. If I wanted to try aggressive investing, I would be targeting at least a 25% year-on-year growth, and spend more time thinking about investing compared to actually investing. It’s do-able but the entire goal of this is to get my time back, so…

Thanks mostly to New Zealand’s V-Shape market recovery, I managed a 10% return in March. I am pretty happy with that. The idea is that you invest enough that when you do retire, you withdraw less than you’re gaining. The guideline here roughly 4% of your investment a year, accounting for an 8% return on the market. But we’re still in the growth phase. It’s still going to be a while before I start to make any withdrawals.

To help me identify future stocks, manage my portfolio, and just look at pretty graphs, I have been using a site called ShareSite. ShareSite breaks down your investments into an easy-to-understand way. It shows a great graph of which industries you’ve invested in. Along with a whole bunch of other information. It also keeps tracks of dividend payments, reinvestment plans, and even tax payments. So not only do you get to see how your shares are performing, but you get a holistic view of your portfolio. And plus, just look at this graph!

This is my entire portfolio since I started re-investing in 2019. You can tell where I got serious, where I made purchases, and which purchases where a good idea and which were a bad idea. For managing your portfolio, I can’t recommend it enough. And its free! Of course, if you want cool stuff like forecasting, you have to pay, but for a hobby investor like myself, the free tier does nicely.

I mean, just look at how nicely it splits stuff out. Not only do I see my capital gains from the shares, but I see how much in dividends I have earned. Keep in mind, this is for the entire time I have invested. So, since I started investing, I have increased my money by 11.59%! Imagine if the bank gave you an interest rate of 11%. Everyone would squirl away as much money as possible. Instead, the current interest rates (at least in the developed world) are lower than inflation. Meaning money in the bank is losing you money.

There are so many tools out there to help you invest, and help you invest wisely. Most of them free! And for hobby investors, like myself, who only have a few grand to throw at the market a year, they are perfect. If I was investing 100K a year, or more, then I’d probably want to use the paid tiers…

The one site I do not, absolutely under no circumstances, not even “it might be useful”, recommend is ShareClarity. I’ll dive more into why I do not like, use, or trust them in next month’s Portfolio Update, since I think I have given you a lot of food for thought now.

March 24th, 2021
Current Portfolio : $20,651.35
Current Profit : $1,928.03 (10.3%)

And now I must put this in for the legal reasons…
I am not a financial advisor. All advice is taken with this in mind. I do not benefit from you using the same platform I do, or by using a different one. I do not have any insider knowledge of any company listed. Everything I will talk about – from the tools to the news – will be as available to me as it is to you. Again: I am not a financial advisor and never will be.