December 2020 Update – Investment Returns

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my December update, where I will discuss my returns for November 2020. Another month of crazy times – the American elections (and presidency challenges) are finished, the corona virus is rampant, and markets hit their all time highs. Let’s get into whats been happening this month:

  • Since inception (Nov 2020) my American share portfolio returned returned 16.4% against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF which returned 5.32%
  • my P2P and Crowdlending investment profile returned an average of 1.05%, bringing my total for crowdlending to a return of 8.96% so far this year. My highest returns came from Crowdestor (1.60%), Fast Invest (0.97%), and Bondora (0.94%)
  • my Solar panel system generated 95 kWh of energy this month (paid out in BTC), bringing my total energy production to 502 kWh.
  • my total investment portfolio increased by 16% from last month.

Quick Summary

The main items that happened throughout November include:

Overall Asset Allocation

Here I provide a “big picture” of my asset diversification. I also drill down into the differences within my crowdlending portfolio

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This month I didn’t actually do so much, except for withdraw a small amount out of Crowdestor, to provide some additional funds for The Sun Exchange.

Progress Towards Financial Freedom

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The above graph is not net wealth, but instead my progress towards a set goal for my investment portfolio.

This month I was able to increase my investment portfolio way over my proposed guideline. This month I had a net gain (again) of >16%. This was due to a massive run up in my long-term share portfolio.

I have been on the financial freedom path for a while, however, I have not documented my progress until now. Instead of using actual values, I am using percentages (with the goal being 100%). I have an initial conservative plan of 20 years and have provided a guide as to my current progress. You can also see my longer-term graph (i.e. the next 20 years) back on my main returns page.

Share Portfolio

As can be seen below, this month I extended my lead over the over SPDR S&P 500 ETF. Obviously this is early early days, however, my goal is to be able to match the fund, while also being able to generate passive income through dividends.

Now, my portfolio is not solely based on dividend companies. I do have other growth stocks that don’t pay dividends, however these are in other currencies and exchanges, and not a part of this account shown here.

[visualizer id=”37079″ lazy=”no” class=””]

If you are interested to see the breakdown of the investments, please see the chart below. This month I did not add to any positions, but I did receive dividends from CVS, ABBV and MSM. I have a list of additional companies that I am interested in purchasing soon, however I am just waiting for a cheaper entry point.

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I will soon fill in the reasoning behind my purchases above, but the main overall drive for each of the companies are favorable prices, higher than average dividends, and most have a high rate of dividend growth. A lot of these purchases are also products of my readings – The Single Best Investment – Creating Wealth with Dividend Growth and Get Rich with Dividends: A Proven System for Earning Double-Digit Returns. I encourage you to have a look at both of these books (they are both free in pdf version) as they really outline a path to wealth (and a sleep easy portfolio) through dividend paying companies.

Additional to the above, I have two other accounts that are not shown – A “set and forget” account that invests a set amount each month into various index funds, and various accounts in other currencies and exchanges.

P2P and Crowdlending

My Returns in Crowdlending this month

This month saw my P2P and Crowdlending profile return on average 1.05%, which is much higher than what I have been receiving over the past 6 months. I am currently not focusing any more money into this passive income source at this time.

As can be seen below, by far the best performer in my crowdlending portfolio so far in 2020, has been Reinvest24. This is followed by the consistent returns from Bondora, and then the lumpy returns from Crowdestor.

This month Fast Invest finally started to pay out some of the interest that had been delayed due to the virus.

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Quick P2P News

Here is a quick one-liner on some interesting things that were happening around in the P2P space in November:

  • Mintos ended up raising €7.2 million from their crowdfunding campaign.
  • Reinvest24 released their secondary market.
  • Crowdestor has further updated their secondary market, and have increased their management team.
  • The Sun Exchange has their biggest project ever – 16%, which includes onsite battery storage.
  • Fast Invest has started to return interest payments after 5 months.
  • Robo.Cash made profit of over 10.7 million during H1 of 2020.
  • Grupeer has said nothing and repaid nothing.

Crowdlending Summary

Returns this month
Returns Since Inception
Time Invested
0.56%
34%
>3 years
0.94%
43%
>2 years
Grupeer
24%
>2 years
RateSetter (AU) (now Plenti)
0.53%
44%
>5 years
0.97%
21%
2 years
1.60%
21%
>1.755 years
0.26%
16%
>1 year

Even through the virus is now back in Europe (Where most of the p2p platforms are), I was expecting to see a continuation of lower investment returns. However, I was a little surprised to see that my returns were over the 1% mark for the month. Hopefully they will stay like this! To the platforms –

Bondora, Plenti, – Nothing to say about these platforms this month. Bondora and Plenti performed consistently, with no significant news.

Mintos – Raised more than €7,200,000 on Crowdcube, which is a record for the largest amount ever raised in continental Europe. With the money, Mintos plans to capitalize on the rise of non-bank lending as a dominant marketplace for investments in loans in Europe.

Reinvest24 – This month Reinvest24 released their secondary market. It means that investors can now sell out of their property shares before they reach maturity. Additionally new investors are now able to invest in some of the older projects for only €1 ( new projects found on the secondary market have a minimum of €1). If your’re interested in finding out more about the secondary market, the team have released a guide on its use.

Crowdestor – This month I have received a lot more interest due to a few of my projects starting to reach maturity.

Since the commencement of the secondary market, I have been focusing investments on both the Mafia Stars (I) and (II), as well as ELVI Grocery Stores. Both of these projects have consistently paid out their projects, without needing to take any payment holidays. By knowing and realizing this, I was able to capture some great deals. I picked up multiple loans for Mafia Stars, and ELVI Groceries at discounts of over 10%. This means that if the loans pay out (which is likely as they are all current without missing any payments), I am looking at between 30% and 40% returns on my investments. Another persons fear has likely turned into my profit. This month I did take out some money from Crowdestor, with an aim of moving that into The Sun Exchange.

Fast Invest – We have some new money in our account! Finally some interests have been started to be paid. As can be seen by the below graphs, it looks like we will catch up with a backlog of payments during December.

Fast Invest Interest

Grupeer – No sign of life this month.

Here are the graphs and returns separated by platform –

Mintos

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Bondora

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Grupeer

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Plenti (previously RateSetter)

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Fast Invest

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Crowdestor

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Reinvest24

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The Sun Exchange

A few months ago, I purchased some solar cells from The Sun Exchange (if you use the affiliate link, then you will get 1 free solar cell on your first purchase!). The Sun Exchange is the world’s first peer-to-peer solar cell micro-leasing platform.

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The platform works by people purchasing solar cells, which are then leased to companies (such as schools, nursing homes, shopping malls etc), who will pay for the electricity that is generated by your cells. The companies generally can’t afford the outright cost of the systems themselves, which is where the crowdfunding aspect comes in. The solar system will be split up into many smaller cells, that are sold at a reasonable price (i.e. $5 a piece). Solar cells can be bought in either BTC or the local currency (ZAR). I will write a more detailed article about the platform in the future, so look out for that!

This month my cells were able to generate 95 kWh of energy (paid out in BTC), and I was able to purchase solar cells in the supermarket:

  • Spar Plaza | 360.80 kW | Mokopane, South Africa (IRR 11.61%)

The Spar Plaza supermarket solar array is still open, as well as two other additional projects, both of which I will be investing in throughout December:

  • Watergate Apartments | 114.48 kW | Cape Town, South Africa
    A project to power affordable housing (897 homes and retail complex). IRR 11.65%
  • Nhimbe Fresh – Packhouse & Cold Store | 510.3 kW Solar + 1 MWh Storage | Marondera, Zimbabwe
    Helping an agricultural leader install solar panels and (for the first time) an integrated battery storage. IRR 16.71%

If you are seriously thinking about joining The Sun Exchange, the current Nibmbe Fresh project is hands down the one with the highest return on the platform (>16%). What makes it unique, is that its the project includes an integrated battery, which means that solar is being used 24 hours a day. Additionally the lease is denominated in USD (instead of South African Rand), and the lease payments are fixed per cell per month. You can find the information packet here, which contains everything you need to know.
Obviously do your own due diligence before investing.

My total energy generated through The Sun Exchange is currently at 502 kWh, which would allow me to drive 1,864 American miles in a Tesla Model 3 (just need to buy one first).

For some comparison, with 1 kWh you can, toast 160 slices of bread. So in that regard, I have generated enough power to toast 80,320 slices of bread.

AxiaFunder

Recently I invested in litigation funding through AxiaFunder. This is external to other platforms, as the income is not controlled by borrowers ability to pay a loan on time, the currency exchange rate, the markets, or other global health pandemics.

AxiaFunder connects investors with carefully pre-vetted commercial litigation opportunities. The platform invests in legal cases where there is a high probability of winning at court, with potential returns of 20%-30% pa. The only downside with litigation funding – returns are not guaranteed, there is a risk of loosing all of the investment if the case fails, and in some very extreme circumstances, could have to pay more than the amount you put in. (every case is insured, but if the insurance company was to default, then the investors would need to fund more of the project).

Projects are few and far between, and usually last for long periods of time >12 months.

Journey to 1 free Bitcoin

My journey is still an ongoing work in progress. Playing games, making Coin. This month I was able to put all of my updates and platforms into a single article, so I don’t have to reference each section every month! You can find the main article here – My Journey to One Free Bitcoin

Coinbase Earn

This month I haven’t found any new Coinbase Earn courses to pass on. I’ll keep an eye out for next month.

Here is how it works
You watch some short videos through Coinbase, on how various cryptocurrencies work. From there you earn various cryptocurrencies as a reward. I have earned some Ethereum (ETH), Stellar Lumens (XLM), EOS (EOS), Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), and Dai (DAI). I wrote an in-depth article that you can find here.

Brave Browser

I have been using the Brave Browser for the last couple of months. Find out here why I changed to a more secure and rewarding browser. Basically, you get paid to watch advertisements (if you choose to). It allows users to earn a bit of cryptocurrency and allows advertisers to promote materials to a more select crowd. Since I have installed the browser, I have blocked 656,181 trackers and ads, and saved 9.1 hours of loading time.

Money Savings 

With so much work, and not a lot of time to be on Twitter, but here are some of my recent tweets:

Progress on Internal Changes

In a past update, I made a pledge to update sections of my blog. I will keep this section here until these tasks are fully complete. The remaining tasks are:

  • (Priority #1) Adding a page outlining some basic steps for how due diligence can be performed. (started writing this)
  • (Priority #2) Adding a section to each platform review with my own due diligence.
  • (Priority #3) Placing stronger disclaimers within each platform review page saying how my interests lie within the article.
    (Note: currently, there are already disclaimers on all of the pages, however, I will look to have them as more of a focus) .

Socials and Traffic

Things seem to have remained steady this month

You read it all the way through to the end (or you just skipped half of it)! Regardless, thanks for checking out my update this month!
I do encourage you to comment below, and sign up for my newsletter. The newsletter comes out once a month and includes this update and any other articles published during the month.

1 thought on “December 2020 Update – Investment Returns”

  1. Matt, congrats on outperforming the S&P and the net worth increase! Great month for you! I love the data you show – very appealing for someone like me that loves to analyze the numbers. I also like the stocks in your portfolio – keep up the great work!

    Reply

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