Monday 1 August 2016

July 2016 Net Worth: $788,000 (+3.5%)

My net worth is up pretty significantly this month however other than saving a decent amount into our home loan offset account I didn't actually do all that much which is a little disappointing.

I still have plenty to do with respect to my personal finances before I'm in a position where I'm happy to just sit back and let my investments do their thing.  These are just some of the things that I'm looking to do:

  1. Get my individual stock holdings down to 10 individual stocks (currently at 11).  
    • I've been doing quite a lot of work on this and have managed to narrow what I hold
    • This does not mean that I only want to hold 10 securities. I'm willing to hold far more than that in broad based index funds but those are pretty much set and forget type investments that I don't need to think about all that much
    • I want to hold at maximum 10 individual stocks.  Any more than this and I honestly do not have enough time in the day to do them justice and I end up not knowing enough about the stocks I own
  2. Progressively transfer stock holdings into my wife's name
    • I currently hold most of my share investments in my name which is incredibly inefficient from a tax point of view (given that she is in a lower income tax bracket)
    • As I sell shares over time I want to move more and more into her name
  3. Work out what I want to do with my managed funds
    • Several years ago my parents gave me a portfolio of managed funds and they have slowly been growing over time
    • However they are quite high fee and they do tend to create tax issues for me each year so I need to work out what I am doing with these
  4. Move cash and stock progressively out of my interactive brokers account
    • Interactive Brokers is a great platform if you are looking to trade frequently
    • My investing methodology has been changing over time and I am far more a buy and hold forever type of person...interactive brokers isn't great for this especially given the inability to participate in DRPs or receive franking credits
I could keep going however these are just a few of the larger things I need to do to get my portfolio into shape over time.  Some of these I just need to sit down a do a bit of work and others I can only do opportunistically.

However that's enough about the future plan...let's see how I've actually performed this month.

July was a bit of catch up month after a dreadful June...



I've outlined below how I performed in different areas

Direct Share Investments (+$12,600)

This was largely just a catch up from June where my direct share investments were down $12,900.  Not a lot happened this month however I did receive some dividends which are sitting in my cash accounts and which need to be reinvested in direct shares.

I'm currently sitting on about $15,000 in cash which I'm looking to deploy.  I missed a real opportunity in the panic that was created by the Brexit vote and I'm kicking myself for not getting in and buying when the opportunity was there.

Other Investment Assets (+$7,800)

This category continued to perform quite well driven by my superannuation balance bouncing back, additions to my superannuation account by my employer and continued contributions to my employee share plan.

I have about $900 sitting in cash accounts waiting to be invested in alternatives.  I am mulling about whether to put this into coins or to let it build and then buy some artwork or some other alternative investment like that.

Other Assets (+$8,500)

The increase in our other assets this month was basically contributions to both our home loan offset account as well as cash which is sitting in there waiting to be deployed to other accounts (like my share accounts or alternative investments).  I wouldn't expect increases to be this large going forward.

Liabilities (+$2,200)

My liabilities balance increased this month as we spent more on our credit card on various expenses including renovations and other more personal type expenses.  Our credit card balance hasn't been this high in quite a long time and I would hope to bring it down more around the $4000 mark going forward.

Outlook

Whilst I haven't gotten my financial situation to exactly where I would like it to be, it is a whole lot more ordered than where it was a year ago.  I am finding that having a plan and working towards it leads to much more consistent decision making on my behalf.

That being said I still have plenty left to do.  This month my goals are to:
  • Get my taxes in order and file them in September
  • Sell a portion of my employee shares 
  • Sell at least one more share to get my individual share count down to 10
  • Re-invest a portion of the cash in my share trading accounts if the opportunity arises



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