It can be difficult sharing a portfolio, especially as early on I made a lot of bad investments. I wish to share my portfolio in the hope that you can learn from my mistakes, but also see how I have been able to grow my portfolio consistently over the years.
My portfolio is distributed between investments in my own name, investments through different companies that I own and through my own private pension.
I will breakdown each year one by one, showing firstly how the capital grew in the period and secondly how the capital is distrubuted between the various asset classes for the period.
2017
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I started my first investment in December 2017, by investing €500 in a private pension. This was my only investment in 2017.
2018
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My goal in 2018 was to build a portfolio of €46,000 saving roughly €3,000 per month.
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My first major investment was a €17,500 investment in a forestry company that grows Christmas Trees. The investment is broken down into two agreements, with the first agreement due to be settled in January 2020, and the second in April 2023. One mistake I made with this investment, is I should have invested less as my portfolio has been badly balanced for a long time as I didn't diversify enough when making this investment.
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From May 2018 I invested in several forex scams. These included an investment in Blue Trading, which was a trading company offering high risk returns of between 15-20% per month. I fell for the scam and continued to add more capital into Blue Trading. Thankfully, I eventually worked out it was a Ponzi Scheme and pulled my money and profit out. Ironically, the majority of my profit for 2018 came from Blue Trading (and I am thankful I pulled out of the investment when I did).
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I also invested in another forex scam called Algotechs. Algotechs went bust in early 2019 and I lost around €4,000. While this was a bad loss at the time, I learned a lot about the forex industry because of Algotechs.
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By mid 2018 I also started investing in peer to peer lending platforms. The platforms the majority of my peer to peer capital is in is: Mintos.
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Also in mid 2018, I purchased shares in Mclowd, an Australian based start up providing accounting services for self administered pensions. They were a client of mine in my web development business and this was my first investment in a private company.
Investment Summary for 2018
| 31st Dec 2018 |
| Opening Balance |
€500.00 |
| Capital Introduced |
€36,951.50 |
| P2P Lending Interest Income |
€237.19 |
| Forex Trading Income |
€5,634.78 |
| Equities Capital Gain |
-€126.69 |
| Capital Gain of shares in Private Company |
€2,145.49 |
| Forestry Capital Gain |
€2,750.00 |
| Closing Balance |
€48,092.27 |
|
| Portfolio Return |
€10,640.77 |
| Annualised % Return |
28.41% |
Asset Allocation as of 31st December 2018
| 31st Dec 2018 |
| Peer to Peer Lending |
€10,361.45 |
21.54% |
| Shares & Equities |
€5,873.31 |
12.21% |
| Business Venture Equity (Start Up Investments) |
€4,090.13 |
8.50% |
| FOREX |
€4,457.38 |
9.27% |
| Forestry |
€20,250.00 |
42.11% |
| Cash |
€3,060.00 |
6.36% |
| Total |
€48,092.27 |
100% |
2019
Investment Summary for 2019
| 31st Dec 2019 |
| Opening Balance |
€48,092.27 |
| Capital Introduced |
€36,562.48 |
| P2P Lending Interest Income |
€3,257.41 |
| Forex Trading Income |
-€2,149.90 |
| Equities Capital Gain |
€1,989.49 |
| Capital Gain of shares in Private Company |
€67.03 |
| Forestry Capital Gain |
€4,375.00 |
| Closing Balance |
€92,193.78 |
|
| Portfolio Return |
€7,539.03 |
| Annualised % Return |
8.91% |
Asset Allocation as of 31st December 2019
| 31st Dec 2019 |
| Peer to Peer Lending |
€16,745.21 |
18.16% |
| Shares & Equities |
€15,739.15 |
17.07% |
| Business Venture Equity (Start Up Investments) |
€8,415.20 |
9.13% |
| Property |
€14,108.65 |
15.30% |
| FOREX |
€11,635.54 |
12.62% |
| Forestry |
€24,625.00 |
26.71% |
| Cash |
€925.03 |
1.00% |
| Total |
€92,193.78 |
100% |
2020
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In early January 2020, I lost €6,000 by over leveraging my trading account. I have since recovered much of the loss, but it was a huge learning curve.
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In late Febuary 2020, Envestio (a peer to peer lending platform in Eastern Europe) disappeared overnight. All indiciations suggest it was a scam. I wrote off the capital from my portfolio and lost ~€1,600.
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Also in late Febuary 2020, one of the agreements from the Christmas tree investment I made in early 2018 matured. I looked to use the money to purchase my own forestry land and this lead to me exploring the idea of forming a co-op to plant native trees.
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In April 2020, Grupeer (Europe's second biggest peer to peer lending platform) indicated cashflow issues due to COVID19. Once investigations were made by investors, there were several fake loan originators. All indiciations suggest Grupeer is a scam. I wrote off the capital from my portfolio and lost ~€4,500.
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In September 2020, I returned back to full time work in order to increase our savings rate to 70% and fast track our progress to becoming FI.
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In late 2020, we looked to establish a more traditional portfolio of property and equities (index funds). We were able to purchase a new house for us to live and rented out our current home. As part of this transaction, we released equity from our current home to purchase our new home (thus the large amount of capital introduced in 2020).
Investment Summary for 2020
| As At: 31st December 2020 |
| Opening Balance |
€92,193.78 |
| Capital Introduced |
€60,025.71 |
| P2P Lending Interest Income |
-€5,531.54 |
| Forex Trading Income |
-€2,988.17 |
| Equities Capital Gain |
€3,377.88 |
| Capital Gain of shares in Private Company |
€26.28 |
| Property Income |
-€23.27 |
| Forestry Capital Gain |
€2,250.00 |
| Cryptocurrency Capital Gain |
€182.83 |
| Closing Balance |
€149,513.50 |
|
| Portfolio Return |
-€2,705.99 |
| Annualised % Return |
-1.78% |
Asset Allocation as of 31st December 2020
| 31st December 2020 |
| Peer to Peer Lending |
€2,284.26 |
1.53% |
| Shares & Equities |
€41,645.32 |
27.85% |
| Business Venture Equity (Start Up Investments) |
€12,596.14 |
8.42% |
| Property |
€58,885.12 |
39.38% |
| Forestry |
€14,475.00 |
9.68% |
| Cryptocurrency |
€268.72 |
0.18% |
| Cash |
€19,358.94 |
12.95% |
| Total |
€149,513.50 |
100% |