Happy New Year ! What better way to start the year than to look at my investment portfolio update and see how my assets have grown (or declined) over the last 2 months. This follows my 2-year review of my TFSA TD e-Series index portfolio that I just released, and looks more specifically at the last 2 months, and how unpleasant they’ve been to my investments. This month I also look at adding new index investment assets to my portfolio! See below for more details!
Overall Assets
It’s been a bit of a tough two months for the global stock markets, and my investments in general, and while I’ve been buying more assets while the markets are down (they’re on sale, as the writer of “Millionaire Teacher” would say), my portfolio has suffered.
TFSA TD e-Series Index Funds
A trend for the second half of 2018 was a downturn in markets, which showed in the index investments that I own. The Canadian, US, and International index funds saw major drops, while my Canadian Bond index fund saw some gains. November and December saw some dividend payouts by my major equity funds as well. The Canadian index lead the way with a $141 dividend payout for the year. The US and International index funds are less generous with their dividends. Overall, my TFSA TD e-Series index investments saw a 1.4% drop in value from the beginning of November to the end of December.
November and December swept away a majority of the gains I had earned from earlier in 2018 for these funds unfortunately, but I’m still looking for the long term gains of this portfolio. The end of December saw some of the biggest losses in a long time for global markets, but they were able to regain some of their value in the last few days.
RRSP TD e-Series Index Funds
With the aggressive approach my RRSP TD e-Series portfolio takes, I saw relatively greater losses compared to my TFSA. This is because I don’t own any Bonds in this basket. The Bonds leveled out some of my losses in my TFSA.
My RRSP TD e-Series portfolio lost 3.1% of it’s value over the two months. Here’s hoping that 2019 provides a better outlook for these index investments.
Other Index Investments
In November and December, I decided that I wanted to start testing the waters of some other index investing platforms. While the goals and strategies are mostly the same between the platforms, and I plan to stay with TD e-Series as my main investment vehicle long term, I wanted to start tracking the offerings that Tangerine and WealthSimple have to offer. I started with some small contributions, with a $100 contribution to the Tangerine Balanced Growth Portfolio in early November, and a $100 contribution to the WealthSimple Growth Portfolio in late December.
The Tangerine Balance Growth Portfolio (which I’ve written about here) followed the losses of the markets in general, and my investment lost 6.5%. It should be noted that the timing of the portfolio buy was not good, which over this short time frame, amplifies the losses. Since my WealthSimple buy came at the end of December, it did not see a lot of movement, with a 0.5% loss.
Stay tuned for some additional reading, articles and guides about WealthSimple!
High Interest Savings Account
I’m still on my promotional interest rate of 2.5% with Tangerine, and earned $41.56 in interest over the 2 months for my emergency savings fund. I also transferred $100 out of this savings account and into a Tangerine Investment Fund, which is accounted for below.
I use this savings account so that I have access to funds at any time if needed, and can use in case of emergency or urgent need for cash.
Home Value
The steady equity growth of my condo continues to add to the value to my overall assets, gaining $770 in equity value with 2 mortgage payments over November and December. I will update the Condo value in the new year, once I receive my property assessment.
Cryptocurrency Portfolio
Let’s not talk about crypto…
Just kidding, it’s always good to look at and analyze your failures as much as your successes.
You can see losses across the board in my cryptocurrency portfolio, as the entire crypto market continues to struggle.
For new readers, know that I’ve been invested in a small amount of crypto over the last year or so, and that it’s a fun, small investment that I started to make as I got interested in crypto as a hobby. I was prepared for it to tank and go to $0, and if it did, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. Hopefully over time, this portfolio will rise, but if not, I won’t affect my overall net worth very much.
Investment Roundup
As you can see, it was a pretty tough 2 months across the board. My index investments matched the downswing of the global markets, but I used this as an opportunity to purchase more assets which will payoff in the long-term when markets return to normal and rise (as they do over the long-term). By investing in a few different index platforms, I hope to be able to compare the different funds and test out the different platforms available to passive investors.