It’s the time of the month for another one of my portfolio reviews, now for May 2019. As usual includes a breakdown, new positions and more. Let’s get into it:
Cash And Cash Equivalents (Savings Account) – 63.40%
Apple (AAPL) – 8.03%
Freetrade – 5.11%
Unilever (UN) – 4.89%
Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.B) – 4.60%
Bank of America (BAC) – 4.24%
AT&T (T) – 3.74%
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VFEM) – 3.51%
Vangard USD Corporate Bond ETF (VUCP) – 2.47%
Total Portfolio Value -0.7%
New Positions
Unilever – I have started accumulating a position in Unilever for a couple of reasons. First I like the products they have and they are nicely diversified across different products and countries. They are showing decent growth, have a nice dividend of around 3% and are fairly valued.
What I expect from this company going forward is around 5-6% growth and 5-6% dividend growth on top. It is not the type of company that is going to provide some crazy growth, but it is a very safe one for the long-run.
Vanguard USD Corporate Bond ETF – There is nothing interesting in this one to be fair. I am going to use this ETF to park some idle cash. It provides a 3.4% dividend paid monthly and being an ETF it is diversified across hundreds of different companies.
I plan on increasing this position a bit, moving money from the savings account to bonds.
Freetrade – The new UK stockbroker recently launched it’s 4th crowdfunding campaign. I decided to take a part of it and make it part of my portfolio for a couple of reasons.
First I really like their product and their focus on the customers. They also have great plans for the future and I like their mission of making investing easier for more people. I also feel that I can trust them, which is weirdly rare for stock brokers, at least in the UK.
But there are a lot of challenges in front of them. There is going to be increasing competition in the zero-fee brokerages in the UK and they are still lacking a lot of functionality.
That is why I do not intend to increase my position further and I have invested money that I can afford to lose. I have decided to have 5% of my portfolio for riskier bets and this one is going to go to Freetrade.
My Plans For The Month
This has not been the most interesting month if I have to be honest. This is the first month in a long time that my portfolio has actually decreased, albeit just 0.7%.
It is caused by the fact that I am currently in between jobs and have not been contributing to it for the last month. Hopefully this should change by the end of the month and things are going to go back to normal.
Now let’s go to my stock market plans for this month.
Decrease my cash position
I have been struggling with this for quite some time now. Still I have been gradually decreasing it month over month, I am now down to almost 60%. Yes, it is a lot of cash I know that, but it has been really hard finding fairly valued companies lately.
I am not a big fan of having a big cash position, but on the other hand I am also not a fan of buying overvalued companies.
Increase my ETF positions
I have started small positions in the bond ETF and the emerging markets ETF and I plan to increase both of them going forward. I also want to add an S&P500 ETF and a Europe index ETF for some diversification.
My plan is to have 50% of my portfolio in ETFs at some point and those are going to be my main ones.
Increase My Dividend Income
My portfolio is totally dividend-oriented and Freetrade is going to be the only exception. My plan for the month is going to be increasing my dividend income by finding some more dividend growth stocks.
Overvaluation is again a problem, but I have been following a couple of stocks that might be coming down to fair value.
Conclusion
To be fair this has not been the most interesting month for me portfolio-wise. I have been more focused on moving towns again as I will be moving to Sofia for the next couple of months. It will be the fifth town I will be living in for the last 3 years, but now is the time for new challenges and doing new things.
Stock market-wise my portfolio has been mildly down for the month, but my dividends have been increasing, which is the more important thing for me.
This will be all from me, hope you found it interesting. Don’t forget to subscribe if you want to stay updated on new articles.