Portfolio Update – My Investments in 2021 (May)

Now that the rainy, cold month of May is finally behind us, let’s see what happened and how all of my investments performed last month.

As usual, I’ll be covering my investments in P2P lending, stocks in the form of ETFs and my small bets in crypto, which have seen a ton of volatility lately.

Please don’t forget that none of this is investment advice, just personal opinion based on my own experience as a 31-year old investor.

ETFs

Let’s start with what makes up the biggest chunk of my portfolio. I’m of course talking about stocks, in the form of ETFs.

My goal is to have around 60% of my investments allocated in ETFs.

Actually, I haven’t shared this part of my portfolio with you in detail in quite some time now, so let me show you all my positions in a bit more detail.

Here is our entire ETF portfolio at the beginning of June 2021:

Our 111.000€ ETF Portfolio

ETF	Value (4.6.2021)
Vanguard FTSE All-World Acc.	22.048€
Vanguard FTSE All-World Distr.	69.659€
xTrackers MSCI World 1D	19.330€
Total	111.037€

Just so you know, my wife and I share our finances, so this includes her shares as well.

As you can see, we kept the MSCI World shares we bought a few years ago, before we switched to an all-in-one ETF strategy (including Emerging Markets), using the Vanguard FTSE All-World.

In the beginning of 2021, we started to buy the accumulating version of the same ETF instead, to have the dividends reinvested automatically and to save a bit on taxes. We’re not selling any of our existing shares though, as it would make zero sense to realize profits and lose money on taxes as a result.

Plus, these ETFs are still perfectly in line with our long-term, passive investment strategy and who doesn’t like being paid some dividends on a regular basis.

That’s precisely what happened last month, where we received a total of 270€ in dividends from the xTrackers MSCI World ETF.

That being said, the stock market is still going strong this year. Here is how our main ETF, the Vanguard FTSE All-World has been performing in 2021:

• +0,61% in May
• +11,61% since the beginning of 2021

I would be extremely happy with these returns on a yearly basis, as my long term expectation from ETFs is closer to 7% per year on average.

You can find links to my favorite low-cost brokerage accounts here:

• The Brokers I use to buy ETFs

P2P Lending

Ok, let’s talk about the second largest asset class in my portfolio, P2P lending.

Here is my platform allocation as of today:

I would like to reduce the size of Crowdestor, but apart from that I’m happy with how my money is distributed.

Let’s see how each platform did individually and discuss noteworthy events.

Mintos

• Income (May 2021): 54,25€
• IRR: 12,20%
• Invested since: 27.09.2018

My funds in recovery decreased slightly on Mintos compared to April.

One thing I noticed however is that the interest rates decreased over the past couple of weeks, so I had to lower the minimum interest rate of my auto invest to 10%.

Mintos also reported that loan default rates are now back to their pre-pandemic levels, which is great to see.

Crowdestor

• Income (May 2021): 41,19€
• IRR: 9,26%
• Invested since: 03.04.2019

I received a lot more payments on Crowdestor compared to April, hopefully that’s a good sign.

That being said, most of my loans are still late and I’m planning to reduce the size of this account, so I withdrew 124,62€ from the platform in May.

Lendermarket

• Income (May 2021): 30,68€
• IRR: 14,29%
• Invested since: 21.11.2019

The Creditstar Group, the lending company offering all the loans on Lendermarket, recently held a webinar and published the topics that they covered on their blog.

Here are some things that stood out to me:

• They remained profitable in 2020
• Creditstar launched Monefit in Finland
• Re-entered the UK market
• The company was able to reduce loan default rates from 8,8% in Q1 2020 to 4,5% in Q1 2021.
• Creditstar confirmed KPMG as their auditor and that the audited financial statements for 202 will be online soon.

The platform is still offering 2% cashback on all new investments until the end of June 2021, which you can combine with the 1% bonus offer (paid out after after 60 days) using my link.

Viainvest

• Income (May 2021): 31,33€
• IRR: 12,22%
• Invested since: 11.10.2019

Viainvest was one of my best performing platforms last month.

Iuvo Group

• Income (May 2021): 17,91€
• IRR: 13,06%
• Invested since: 05.10.2018

Robocash

• Income (May 2021): 25,32€
• IRR: 12,17%
• Invested since: 19.01.2021

Robocash started offering loans from the Philippines on its platform, which I added to my auto invest.

• Robocash Review: How Did I Miss This One?
• Use this link or the referral code advE to get 1% cashback on all your Robocash investments after 30 days.

Bondora Go & Grow

• Income (May 2021): 6,94€
• IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,67%
• Invested since: 01.09.2018

EstateGuru

• Income (May 2021): 0€
• IRR: 6,31%
• Invested since: 12.10.2020

EvoEstate

• Invested since: 03.02.2020
• IRR: 0,46%

Three months later, I’m still waiting for my two full loan repayments (incl. interest) on EvoEstate.

My Income From P2P Lending in May

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Mintos	54,25€	12,20%	5.409€	7.625€
Crowdestor	41,19€	9,26%	5.587€	6.569€
Lendermarket	30,68€	14,29%	2.013€	2.621€
Viainvest	31,33€	12,22%	2.177€	2.599€
Iuvo Group	17,91€	13,06%	1.562€	2.580€
Robocash	25,32€	12,17%	2.500€	2.595€
Bondora Go&Grow	6,94€	6,67%	900€	1.254€
EvoEstate	0€	0,36%	730€	733€
EstateGuru	0€	6,31%	500€	520€
Mintos I&A	0,20€	9,83%	0€	105€
Total	207,82€		21.378€	27.201€

I earned a total of 207,82€ in interest from P2P lending in May, which is a lot better than last month. My return on investment from P2P lending was 0,77% for the month.

Bitcoin & Ethereum

Let’s get to the last part of my portfolio, my investments in the two crypto assets Bitcoin and Ethereum. I try to keep these highly speculative investments capped at 10% of my portfolio.

Just one month ago, I was wondering when we’ll finally see some volatility to the downside, as it felt like Bitcoin and Ethereum were just going straight upwards.

And just like that, we saw a major correction, which probably surprised many investors that are new to the space.

Bitcoin:

• -37% in May
• +23% since the start of the year

Ethereum:

• -8% in May
• +253% since the start of 2021

Last month was a great kick in the ass for anyone that thought they could get rich quickly by buying crypto.

Please never use leverage or you can easily get liquidated and lose your entire investment when the market moves in the opposite direction. Luckily I’m not planning on ever doing that.

However, if you were thinking about buying Bitcoin or Ethereum at higher prices, this could be a great buying opportunity.

You can get a lifetime 10% fee discount to Binance, the largest exchange in the world, using my link.

Alright, that’s it for my investments in May!

How was your month?

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• Robocash Review: How Did I Miss This One?
• Finding The Best ETFs in 2021 (European Investor)
• Viainvest Review – 15 Months Later (2021)
• How To Buy ETFs – My Investment Strategy
• PeerBerry Review – Worth It In 2021? (My Personal Opinion)

My Investments in 2021 (May) – The Video