Took up DS2's Computershare Renounceable Entitlement Offer

I had bought some CPU (Computershare) stock for DS2 when he was a child, so he currently has 250 CPU shares in his stock 'portfolio'. Computershare recently did an institutional fund raising round at $13.55 per share, and offered renounceable rights to current (as at 31 March) retail shareholders at a rate of one new share for every 8.8 shares held as at the record date. Any fractional entitlement is rounded up, so DS2 was entitled to purchase 29 shares for $13.55 each.

While this $13.55 offer price is not a huge discount to the current trading price (which is around $14.70), there isn't any brokerage cost, and if he didn't take up his entitlement the rights would be sold off and he would receive a small cash distribution (and his existing share value would be slightly diluted). Anyhow, as the stock portfolio of DS2 isn't worth as much as that of DS1 (due to me buying the shares for DS1 a few years earlier, so he benefited from a period of strong growth in the value of the shares I had bought him), I need to add a bit more to DS2's share portfolio to make it 'fair'. So I paid the $392.95 for these additional shares as a gift for DS2. His CPU share holding will now be 279 shares.

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Progress with completing Master of Financial Planning, and a delay

I managed to scrape in a 'high distinction' grade for the 'financial planning research project' course I did this past semester (Q1), with a mark of exactly 85% (the bare minimum mark required for an HD). Fortunately this means that my overall grade average is now 6.0 ('distinction') so I will only need to average a 'distinction' grade on the final two subjects to be able to graduate 'with distinction' ( or 'cum laude' if you want to sound posh). I expect I might only get a credit for the 'contemporary issues in taxation' course (the other tax course I did for this degree was a law-based course requiring legal arguments based on precedents, which I didn't find hugely interesting). so I'd better aim for getting an HD on the other course that I still have to do - the 'statement of advice research project'.

Unfortunately they've cancelled the running both of these courses in Q2, so I'll now have to do one in Q3 and the other in Q4, so I won't get to finish off this masters degree until the end of the year. At which time I'll be able to apply to enrol as a PhD candidate - providing they accept my previous bit and pieces of research coursework done previously (and one paper I co-authored thirty years ago!) as sufficient prior 'research training'. Otherwise I would have to enrol in an MRes degree first, which would take another four years to complete part-time (and cost buckets of money), so I probably wouldn't bother.

As I'll have no other courses to do in Q2, I'll focus on finishing off the two specialist courses in 'self-managed superannuation funds' and 'margin lending' that I've nearly completed with IIT. And also work through the four subjects required for the Advance Diploma in Financial Planning that I enrolled in a while ago, but so far haven't got around to doing much of.

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Net Worth: MAR 2021

My monthly NW estimate has been updated in NetWorthShare for the end of March. 

Stocks and fund investments gained a bit overall this month, although it was quite a choppy month with concerns about the inflationary impacts of all the stimulus measures vying with the economic stimulus impacts of all the stimulus measures. I used $20K from my 'portfolio loan' line-of-credit to invest in Microequities Asset Management's Value Income Fund, which had no net impact on my NW. Overall my 'stock portfolio' increased by $6,859 (2.09%) to $334,956.

Our estimated house price for March (my half) increased by $10,365 (1.23%) to $852,476. The strength in the housing market continues to increase, but is concentrated in certain suburbs/regions and more in free-standing homes than units/apartments. Not sure how things will be looking by the time my 'off the plan' apartment  construction is completed and I have to 'settle' the purchase in Q2 2023. 

The value of my retirement savings rose significantly during March, to $1,348,789 (up $41,118 or 3.14%). Hopefully I will be able to reach the TBC (currently $1.6m but increasing to $1.7m from 1 July this year) by the time I turn 65 and can transfer up to the TBC out of accumulation phase (where the tax rate is 15%) to retirement phase (where the tax rate is 0%) without having to 'retire'. Any amounts above the TBC will remain in accumulation phase. Part of the TBC might be used to fund the purchase of a deferred annuity to insure against longevity risk.

Overall, my NW reached $2,834,372 by the end of March - up by a healthy $58,617 (2.11%).

Months where my NW increases by almost my annual take-home pay seem quite surreal. But it isn't so much fun when the movement is in the other direction (like in 2008). Looking at the long term chart helps keep the ups and downs in perspective.

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End of MAR 2021 "12% solution" portfolio changes

For the end of March the emailed trading signal was to invest 60% in MDY (SPDR S&P MidCap 400 Index Fund) and 40% in JNK. This is a change in asset allocation from last month so I will need to close out my QQQ position and buy MDY when US trading opens (late tonight in my time zone).

My current account balance is $11,927.81 which represents a cumulative return of 13.94% since AUG 2020 when I commenced this portfolio.

Due to timing differences and fees (and the inclusion of a small holding in ASIA ETF that I had in my IG trading account before adding the "12% portfolio" investments) my portfolio performance won't track exactly against the standard "12% solution" portfolio. According to the monthly newsletter, the 2020 performance for this model was +40.6% and for 2021 YTD performance is now +7.9%.

As I funded this portfolio using my St George Portfolio Loan, my target performance over the long term (10+ years) is for the returns (after admin fees and trading costs) to exceed the interest paid (after factoring tax credit) on the Portfolio Loan.

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