Economy,  FIRE,  Life,  Real Estate,  Stock Market

August Net Wealth Update

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What a difference a month makes, 2nd wave of lockdowns seem to have worked and I’m hoping that things return to normality soon.

No big waves on the personal investing front, apart from some rebalancing of portfolios and a couple of big ticket expense items.

Although at the macro level, at time of writing – tech stocks have started to take a beating.

Fair enough I say, no company can justify 10x of their value in 6 months.

My personal opinion is that investing in most tech stocks is speculating on a story, no more, no less.

You can read the July net wealth update here.

Net Wealth (+$8,208)

Important Notes

Some readers have asked me to be more accurate with the numbers.

So I have… with the stocks at least.

I’m reluctant to do so for the properties because as I have mentioned before, it is extremely difficult to mark-to-market real estate values on a monthly basis. This is because without any comparable sales, you can only guesstimate.

Speaking of which, as you may have read earlier (here), we are in the market to buy our own home!

I must report that on the ground activity seem to show a weakening trend.

Certainly in the areas that we are looking in.

Speaking to agents and others in the industry, I’m putting this down to the realization (thank you mainstream media), that Australia is officially in recession.

Funny ain’t it? Everyone knew we were in recession 6 months ago – but it’s when it’s plastered on the 6 o’clock news, that it truly hits home.

August Update

  • Rebalanced back into investment options in the superfund, chiefly because I realized Australian Super has a diversification rule on direct investing as percentage of available cash, not on overall portfolio.
  • For those who care what this means (not many I’m guessing)… it means instead of letting me invest $20k per transaction (what I thought), I was only allowed $3k (based on cash balance).
  • Why bother with $3k? May as well chuck it into the passive option and let it fly.
  • And of course, as soon as I did, markets take a tumble. TheFrugalSamurai effect I s’pose.
  • Real estate portfolio doing it’s thing. Luckily (or unluckily), it’s not heavily exposed to Sydney nor Melbourne. In fact, am seeing asking prices increasing in those cities we are invested in.
  • Cautiously optimistic here, although I would put it down to the mainstream media (again), attributing anything Sydney and/or Melbourne related – to be indicative of Australia as a whole.
  • This is a blatant lie. “Spits on ground in disgust”.
  • Bringing it back to the portfolio, had a couple of hefty bills this month, including a $2.5k special levy for new balustrades… c’mon who even NEEDS balustrades! Cement the lot of youse I say. Bunnings 20kg cement bag for $8.50 done deal F F S.
  • Building a nice little war chest with cash. Some of you have remarked why I don’t deploy it. Don’t worry, it will be used – but not just for the sake of it.

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