March and April kept with the theme of the first 2 months of 2018 and saw ups and downs for my TD e-Series portfolios. In general, my investment portfolio growth has continued though, with help from an annual pension update, and continued increases in my home equity and savings accounts.
Overall Assets
TFSA TD e-Series Index Funds
With talks of trade wars, and questions about resource production plans, my TD e-Series index fund portfolio saw steady increases, followed by swift drops. Unfortunately in the last 2 months, we haven’t seen any stability in increases, and have lot some ground on the gains made in 2017.
But when the markets are down, that means it’s a good time to buy! I increased my stake in my bonds fund, as well as the Canadian and International index funds. I spread out my additions to keep close to my investment targets of 23%/23%/23%/31%.
Overall, since I started investing in late 2016, I’ve made just over $1,700 in pure gains to my TFSA portfolio, which is about a 9.6% gain all time. Not too bad in the middle of a down year.
RRSP TD e-Series Index Funds
Not too much too add about my RRSP TD e-Series Index Funds. With the aggressive approach (no bond index investments), my RRSP portfolio provided a slightly better return than my TFSA portfolio over the last 2 months, since the TD Canadian Bond index has kind of been in the dumps.
I started my RRSP TD e-Series Index investments later than my TFSA portfolio, so haven’t seen the same percentage gains, but still have gains of $190 since starting in February 2017. A 9.2% gain in that time.
High Interest Savings Account
Having had to withdraw from my short term savings over the last few months to pay off some major condo fees (new roof, ugh) I’ve put a focus on rebuilding this fund in the last 2 months.
I’ve got some vacation plans coming up and will be booking some flights in the next month, so unfortunately, will see some depletion of my savings once again. Hopefully not too much!
Home Value
Equity continues to grow, along with the housing market in general. While I use the city property assessment to determine my condo value – I’ve recently seen a unit in my building go for much more.
I like to stay conservative when estimating value of assets (hence using property assessments), but based on the market in my area, my equity may look more like $110,000 or $120,000.
Cryptocurrency Portfolio
Something to get used to if you are thinking of getting into the cryptocurrency market – wild swings and sometimes major losses. After the December 2017/January 2018 cryptocurrency boom, we’ve seen crypto markets come back down to real life.
While I was up almost 4 times my original investment at one point, I’m now only at double. I say that sarcastically, as double my investment in 6 months is amazing. But who knows what will happen from here. Markets seem to be back on the rise – but one day they could all go to zero. This is my fun investing money, and not something I’m relying on. I’ll ride this portfolio to it’s dizzying highs and lowly lows and if I lose it all, so be it, I’ve still got my long term investments, my savings, my house equity, and my pension.
Pension Update
Once a year I get a pension update, and I received my 2017 pension overview in March. I’ve laid out what I contributed, what my employer contributed, and the investment increases that my union has seen with their pension investments.
Pretty good returns on their investments (around 10%), but I like to think that as an amateur, I’m keeping up a pretty good pace with my own personal portfolio.
Car
2 more car payments, means increased personal value on my car. This is a pretty rough estimate though as I don’t know what the exact resale of my car is, and won’t be able to get a Canadian Black Book value until it ages a bit more.