Portfolio Update - My Investments in 2021 (October)

Let’s have a look at how my investment portfolio performed in October 2021.

As always, I’ll cover all my investments: P2P lending, stocks in the form of ETFs, my small position in crypto and my income from crypto and USD lending. I’ll show you how everything performed, the changes I made and we’ll discuss noteworthy events all the way up to November 22nd.

I also can’t believe I’m this late again, I’ll tell you why at the end of the post.

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

Alright, let’s begin with my largest investment allocation: Stocks in the form of ETFs.

ETFs

Nothing changed here. I like to keep it very simple, so my wife and I only buy a single ETF, the accumulating Vanguard FTSE All-World (ISIN: IE00BK5BQT80, Ticker: VWCE).

It allows us to invest into over 3.700 companies from all over the world.

Distributing vs. Accumulating ETFs: What You Need To Know

Dividends

As I mentioned last month, the largest chunk of my investments in ETFs (purchased before 2021), is still paying out dividends. It wouldn’t make any sense to sell these shares for tax reasons as they’re up quite substantially and they still fit in nicely with my investment strategy.

One of these, the Xtrackers MSCI World, paid out another 95,49€ in dividends in the beginning of October.

Our entire ETF Portfolio (incl. my wife)

Let’s have a look at how our main ETF, the Vanguard FTSE All-World, performed in October:

+4,38% in October
+22,88% since the beginning of 2021

As exciting as this performance has been, let me remind you to treat ETFs as a long term investment. You investment horizon should be at least 5 years, ideally 10 years or more.

ETFs are not something to jump in and out of, as we’ll also have months or even years with negative returns.

The Best Low-Cost Brokers in Europe

If you need an excellent, low-cost brokerage account to get into stocks & ETFs, I recommend checking out my two favorites:

Interactive Brokers – Especially after they eliminated inactivity fees in July 2021
Degiro – Their 200 commission-free ETFs are a great place to start (ETFs & conditions)

If you’re from Austria like me or from Germany, where taxes are more complicated, you can find my favorite local brokers here. These take care of the taxation for you, making your life a lot easier.

P2P Lending

Now that we’re done with ETFs, let’s talk about my investments in P2P lending.

Here’s my platform allocation on the 1st of November:

I’m planning to remove Crowdestor and to shift that money over to other platforms.

In case you’re curious about my current top 5 platforms in P2P lending, here’s my list:

My TOP 5 in P2P Lending

Mintos

Income (October 2021): 52,29€
IRR: 11,57%
Invested since: 27.09.2018

My funds in recovery dropped a bit further in October on Mintos, which I was happy to see.

That being said, it seems harder and harder to find loans paying 10% interest or more, as interest rates seem to have dropped sharply across the board on the marketplace.

10% per year is my personal minimum for investments in P2P lending (Bondora Go & Grow is my only exception, because it allows me to withdraw my money at any time).

So a few days ago, when I saw that I already had 1.000€ uninvested, I withdrew those funds and transferred them to Lendermarket, Robocash and Viainvest.

I’m really hoping that the interest rates on Mintos are going to increase again in the coming months.

Viainvest

Income (October 2021): 30,25€
IRR: 12,17%
Invested since: 11.10.2019

Unlike Mintos, I had no cash drag and no issues being fully invested into loans paying 11% interest on Viainvest. That’s also why I added another 250€ to my account a few days ago – but more on that in next month’s update.

Get a 10€ signup bonus on Viainvest via my link.

Robocash

Income (October 2021): 27,50€
IRR: 12,30%
Invested since: 19.01.2021

I had no issues being fully invested into loans paying 11-12% per year on Robocash either, which is why I moved 250€ over from Mintos last week.

As I mentioned last month, my friend and fellow YouTuber Lars Wrobbel visited the Robocash offices and some of their lending companies. He published a total of 7 videos about his trip. You can find them here.

Use this link or the referral code advE to get 1% cashback on all your Robocash investments after 30 days.

Lendermarket

Income (October 2021): 31,28€
IRR: 14,36%
Invested since: 21.11.2019

No problems with cash drag on Lendermarket either, which is why I transferred 500€ from Mintos last week.

Creditstar, the group of lending companies offering all the loans on Lendermarket, hosted a webinar last Thursday, which I attended. The company’s leadership, incl. the CEO Aaro Sosaar, left a good impression on me.

They also mentioned that the audit with KPMG is progressing and that if everything goes as planned, it should be online by the end of this month. Apparently, they underestimated the amount of time and effort needed for the audit with the new auditing firm, especially since they’re active in 8 countries and everything has to be consolidated.

That being said, Creditstar published their interim report for Q3 2021, according to which the group generated 2,7 million Euros in net profit last quarter.

Last but not least, Lendermarket announced a 2% cashback campaign, for new (invested) deposits of 1.000€ or more until November 30th. It can be combined with the referral bonus below.

Get 1% cashback on your investments on Lendermarket after 60 days by signing up via my link.

Iuvo Group

Income (October 2021): 18,99€
IRR: 11,80%
Invested since: 05.10.2018

Crowdestor

Income (October 2021): 34,46€
IRR: 8,61%
Invested since: 03.04.2019

Crowdestor is my one annoyance in the P2P lending sector at the moment.

I withdrew 51,48€ at the start of October, as I’m planning to leave the platform. 24 out of 39 loans are still late.

Bondora Go & Grow

Income (October 2021): 7,13€
IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,68%
Invested since: 01.09.2018

Bondora announced some good news on November 11th. The platform raised the maximum that investors can add to Go & Grow from 400€ to 1.000€ per month.

I’m hoping that they’ll be able to remove the limitation all together again in the future!

Get a 5€ bonus on Bondora when you sign up via my link and invest 10€ or more.

EstateGuru

Income (October 2021): 5,52€
IRR: 7,00%
Invested since: 12.10.2020

As great as EstateGuru‘s track record with real-estate backed loans is, I’m not sure I’ll be using this platform in the long run.

I just don’t have the time to select loans manually and I would need a lot more capital to get some proper diversification using the auto invest.

Use this link for a 0,5% bonus on EstateGuru for the first 3 months.

EvoEstate

Income (October 2021): 0€
Invested since: 03.02.2020
IRR: 6,90%

My Income From P2P Lending in October

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Mintos	52,29€	11,57%	5.409€	7.887€
Crowdestor	34,46€	8,61%	5.208€	6.339€
Lendermarket	31,28€	14,36%	2.013€	2.776€
Viainvest	30,25€	12,17%	2.487€	3.039€
Iuvo Group	18,99€	11,80%	1.562€	2.677€
Robocash	27,50€	12,30%	3.000€	3.231€
Bondora Go&Grow	7,13€	6,68%	900€	1.289€
EvoEstate	0€	6,90%	324€	400€
EstateGuru	5,52€	7,46%	500€	539€
Mintos I&A	0,04€	9,93%	0€	59€
Total	175,85€		21.403€	28.236€

I earned a total of 175,85€ in interest from P2P lending in October. According to Portfolio Performance, the free tool I use to track my investments, that’s a return of 0,63% for the month and an internal rate of return of 9,57% so far from P2P lending in 2021.

P2P Lending Bonus & Cashback Offers (November 2021)

Bitcoin & Ethereum

Alright, let’s get to my investments in the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Out of my portfolio, these carry the most risk, so I try to limit them at around 10% of my total investments.

Since they’ve gone far above that this year with their performance, I’m planning to do some rebalancing again by the end of 2021 at the latest.

Here’s how they performed:

Bitcoin:

+41% in October
+123% since the start of the year

Ethereum:

+44% in October
+530% since the start of 2021

As is usual in this unpredictable market, there are a lot of ups and downs, with prices changing on a daily basis. I’ll keep you updated on how these go in the long run.

Just a quick reminder: If you’re considering this sector, please remember not to invest money you can’t afford to lose.

My favorite exchanges to buy crypto

USD & Crypto Lending

Since we’re on the crypto subject, this brings me to my last source of investment income: Crypto lending and USD lending via Celsius Network and the FTX exchange.

Celsius raised their interest rates for USD stable coins (I stick to USDC and BUSD) to 10,02% per year last week. They still pay some of the highest interest rates for BTC (6,2%) and Ethereum (5,35%) as well.

As I mentioned, my income from this source fluctuates on a monthly basis, also depending on how much cash I’m holding. All in all, in October, I earned a total of 112€ in interest on Celsius Network and FTX.

And that’s about everything as far as my investments are concerned!

Personal Stuff

I was actually planning on publishing another video & article before this monthly update and for this one to be out a lot sooner, but my wife and I both caught Covid in the beginning of November. As a result, my voice wasn’t the best for about two weeks.

We’re both back to full health though, so I’m planning to do some catching up now and to publish another post soon!

Also, I’ve been really distracted by some of the crazy things that have been going on in my home country, Austria. The government is now forcing vaccines on the entire population (fines or prison if you don’t comply) and entered another lockdown for about 20 days, while the lockdown for unvaccinated people has no end date (!).

It feels like this country has learned nothing from its dark past (20th century).

This is the first time where I’m actually considering moving somewhere else, especially since my wife and I are planning to have a kid sometime soon.

Sorry for mentioning all of this stuff here. I usually don’t like talking about this publicly, since I know it’s a sensitive topic.

Thank You!

Let’s finish this post with something more positive.

I want to say Thank You to every single one of you that’s been following me on my journey. I’m so grateful that we were able to build a small community of like minded people, that I get to interact with on a daily basis.

I also can’t believe that the YouTube channel crossed 10.000 subscribers already! Thanks everyone.

You might enjoy these posts:

My Investments in 2021 (October) – The Video

Disclaimer: Investing involves risks of losses. You should always do your own research before investing into anything. Also, some of the links are affiliate links, which help support me, the website & YouTube channel. I only link to services I use myself, none of them are sponsored.

Portfolio Update – My Investments in 2021 (October)