Cash / SRS / Crypto Portfolio
Performance Indicators / Dividends (TradFi Portfolio only)
- YTD Time weighted return: -9.76%
- XIRR since portfolio inception in 2013: 17.11%
- Dividends collected YTD: SGD 6,455.51
Note: I don’t provide details or returns metrics on my crypto portfolio publicly.
Crypto bulls in charge
The last 2 weeks of November (since my last post) is a good primer for the type of volatility one can expect in the crypto space. One moment we can be at all time highs, the next we have a 20-30% selloff on some random news. And then we are back close to all time highs. Excellent for traders, turbulent for investors.
Consequently, my overall portfolio value increased to $573,402, pushing my portfolio back close to all time highs. Gains were largely contributed by the crypto portfolio, with the traditional portfolio providing a small bump up.
I didn’t do much this month, just bought some short-dated ETH calls for fun to ride on the strong upwards momentum of BTC and ETH. I’ve since closed them out for a tidy profit. All settled on the Ethereum blockchain, how awesome that is.
On certain market topics
There are quite a number of recent news in the past month that I’ll like to share about.
Weakening USD
I rarely pay attention to currency movements except where it catches my eye. So you can see my surprise when I translated my portfolio value this month to see the USD weaken further.
The above chart is the US Dollar Index, which measures the USD exchange rates against a basket of 6 world currencies. You can see that it has weakened significantly since the start of November. I think this is the result of the US Treasury deciding to withdraw liquidity backstops for the Fed earlier this month. This negatively affected investor confidence in the USD and thus the slide.
The continuing weakness of the USD is a thesis that has been running its course since the Fed cut interest rates to 0 and started printing money again. It’s just surprising to see it actually play out.
BTC reaching all time highs
I’ve been getting queries on whether it’s too late to invest in BTC since 2-3 months ago, so I thought I’ll share some thoughts here.
Fundamentals
In the Crypto Twitter world, BTC is sometimes referred to as “pet rocks”, a term I find hilarious and apt for the role it serves in investor’s portfolio.
Fundamentally, you can’t do much with BTC. You can only either hold it or trade it. It is not able to generate a stream of income on its own. As such, you can only use its as a store of value or as a currency. However, given its inability to handle numerous transactions and its price volatility, it is a poor candidate for a currency.
As such, its most likely use case is as a store of value. There is only 1 other asset I can think of that plays this role – gold.
So the question here for the prospective BTC investor is this: Do you believe BTC will become the “gold of the 21st century”?
If yes, then you should buy and hold BTC as its current market cap is a mere $352.67 billion (based on today’s prices) vs gold’s market cap of about $9 trillion. This investment thesis has gained credence in recent months due to increased acceptance by institutions to incorporate BTC as part of their corporate finance strategies.
That said, this investment thesis is contingent on BTC gaining wider acceptance as a store of value. If not, I don’t see why you should invest in BTC at any price.
Technicals
Let’s say we don’t give a damn about what BTC is and are degenerate traders. What are my thoughts here?
As you can see now, we are literally testing the all time highs of BTC. As such, its a binary situation in my view.
Cross and break $20k – BTC surges and becomes a giant momentum trade. The sky is the limit and expect 2017 price behaviour again.
Rejected at $20k – BTC may dive significantly and stabilise within a certain trading channel for a while. Don’t ask me for specific price levels as I’m not a chartist myself.
Which situation will place out? Who knows?
Depending on your personal views, you should know what to do.
ETH2.0 Launch
In other news, ETH started its long awaited upgrade process this week by launching Phase 0 – the beacon chain for ETH2.0. Ethereum has been struggling to scale up to handle higher transaction volumes and ETH2.0 is a step in that direction.
Interestingly, you can earn “passive income” on ETH2.0 if you are willing to put up 32 ETH to run a validator node. There are of course risks involved and some technical knowledge required, but once sent up the income is almost passive.
Won’t bore you normies with the technical details. Some resources if you’re interested:
- ETH2.0 Launchpad website
- A step by step guide can be found in the following video.
As usual, this is not a call to buy or sell securities and its just sharing my own thought process for your information. Also, crypto is dangerous AF. Please do your own due diligence prior to investing.
Endowus CPF OA Portfolio
As you may know, I’ve started investing my CPF OA funds with Endowus. I’ve been sharing my portfolio performance for readers’ reference to evaluate product performance for themselves.
Last month, I started my Fund Smart portfolio. This resulted in me setting up 2 recurring transactions for 2 goals – My General Wealth Accumulation goal and my Fund Smart goal.
The Endowus team reached out to me to let you guys know that if you do this, schedule the deductions on the same day so that you can save on bank fees.
If you want to learn more about Endowus, do check out my review (Cash/SRS/Fund Smart portfolio details to be updated). Also, if you’re interested in opening an account, do feel free to sign up through my referral link. We will both receive $20 off access fees per referral.
Reader Appreciation
As usual, to the 2 people who liked my Facebook page and subscribed to my blog respectively since my last portfolio update, welcome. Feel free to reach out via email or Facebook. I’m usually quite responsive as readers can attest to. Hope that you have found my blog content useful 🙂
Past updates:
Mid November 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
2019 Performance Scorecard
2018 Performance Scorecard
2017 Performance Scorecard
Happy Hunting,
KK
If you love the articles I write, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and StocksCafe or subscribe to my blog and never miss another article!