May 2020: profit and learning experiences at the stock market

The end of the crisis is not in sight yet, but luckily the restrictions are being lifted gradually everywhere. The impact is big: the European economy is expected to shrink by 7.7%:

The economy will not recover in the short term, but economic activity will increase again from the summer months. A reasonable recovery is hoped for next year. The level of the economy in late 2021 is expected to be slightly below the level of 2019.

The income from crowdlending was certainly not disappointing. Many platforms have given borrowers deferred payments, but it seems that the bulk of them continue as usual. And now that restrictions are gradually lifted in most countries, things could fizzle out. Unless things suddenly flare up again of course .. But I hope not, because I finally want to go on holiday again!

In this monthly update I’ll show you the returns and results of my crowdfunding and crowdlending investments. I also made a nice profit on the stock market, but as you can read later that did involve some learning moments.

Portfolio overview May 2020

Last month my portfolio increased by € 8,174.40 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 7.4%. The table below shows the details for each category.

Passive income per month

You can find my definition of passive income on my portfolio page.

Activities

To show you how little effort is involved when investion via crowdfunding and crowdlending I have added an overview of the manual actions in the last month:

I did check the platforms every now and then, but this was purely for fun. It wasn’t necessary to get these interest payments and return rates.

I did not yet include my orders on the stock market.

Crowdlending

I am happy with the increase of € 633.28 for my crowdlending portfolio. This does indicate that this is still a market with potential. I expect that stability in this market will return within 1 to 2 years and that the trustworthy players will remain. There is also increasing regulation from Europe, and the established platforms are increasingly seeking each other to ensure greater transparency through self-regulation and joint guidelines.

 Bondora

I hear people at Bondora have to wait a while for their payouts. Due to the many withdrawals, the payments from the Go & Grow are now made in parts, this is clearly indicated in advance. To see how long it takes now, I have taken out a small amount myself, so I am curious.

My investments at Bondora returned € 34.07 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

When you register through this link you’ll receive a 5 euro bonus. You can try their Go & Grow option for a few months, but don’t try the other advanced options.

 Brickstarter

Brickstarter reported increased number of bookings, as the Spanish government has announced the end of the travel restrictions.

The purchase of the apartment ‘Ático Santo Domingo’ was canceled and the investment was refunded to my account. The 5% bonus has been paid though, so that is very neat.

Brickstarter expects to open the secondary market in about a week.

My investments at Brickstarter returned € 6.76 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.6%.

 Bulkestate

Investors at Bulkestate are still very active, a newly published project was fully funded within a day. Last month, 3 new projects were added, 1 of which with monthly payments.

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 4.45 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.7%.

 Crowdestate

At Crowdestate I again received the quarterly interest from the Astangu 18/20 project: 90 euros. That adds up nicely. This also brought the free amount above the investment limit of 100 euros, so I immediately invested in another project.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 102.38 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.2%.

 Crowdestor

It will be exciting next month, then I expect the repayment of the ‘Artileria’ project. I found a website where the fully renovated apartments are for sale, and it looks good:

The P2P conference has been postponed for a year to June 2021 due to the crisis, but when I am back in Riga I will definitely stop by here to compare the result with the photos I took last year.

When I have received the money, I will try to withdraw it, because I have invested quite a lot here compared to the other platforms.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 0.00 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.9%.

 EstateGuru

The crowdfunding action of EstateGuru on Seedrs is going smoothly, 202% of the amount sought has already been invested.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 16.67 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.7%.

 EvoEstate

At EvoEstate I invested the money from the project that was canceled last month into the project ‘Mariengasse 12’ which is on the platform ‘Rendity’. Using your single EvoEstate account you can invest in projects listed on a large number of P2P platforms. This comes at no extra charge for investors.

Rendity is a platform based in Vienna, Austria. This project offers ‘only’ 7% interest, but this is quite normal in countries such as Austria and Germany. It feels good to invest in some more “Western European” countries too.

My investments at EvoEstate returned € 2.03 last month, and my average return rate is now 1.4%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a bonus of 0.5% of all your investments in the first 6 months.

 Fast Invest

Fast Invest has indicated that they will charge costs for all new withdrawals: EUR 1.50 per transaction. According to their own words, they have had many problems lately due to a large amount of withdrawals of small amounts, which not only takes them time but also a fee per transaction.

Because many refunds were delayed, they have now introduced ‘Lag Ante’. If your refund has not been processed within 7 days, you will receive a daily fee of 0.025%. This does not seem like much, butthat is about 9% on an annual basis. But this only starts after 7 days, so you shouldn’t see it as a new form of investing 🙂

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 41.79 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.3%.

 Flender

At Flender, 4 of the 11 projects I have invested in have been deferred a few months due to the crisis. The rest just continues, about twice a month I get a message that the auto-invest has invested again (and therefore the minimum investment amount of 50 euros was reached).

My investments at Flender returned € 22.66 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.7%.

 Funding Circle NL

At Funding Circle NL there is only 1 project behind with payments (one month). Everything else is neatly paid again. It is no longer possible to invest in new projects because this platform no longer focuses on private investors. The remaining term of my investments here varies from 3 to 39 months.

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 26.75 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.6%.

 Grupeer

I doubted whether I would write off Grupeer this month, but I decided not to. The website is still up and running, and communication is still there occasionally (finally). Interest and principal has even been deposited again this month. Not that it is helpful, but at least they admit that their bank accounts are blocked. For some reason (‘due to technical issues’) they have reset all account balances to March 31, and expect to have processed all transactions after that date in June. And have a rescue plan ready. This all sounds like stalling, at least it doesn’t inspire confidence …

There is a website where you can find more information about the lawsuit being prepared against Grupeer. On this website you can read that the legal entity that will represent the participating investors is almost established. The costs to participate in this lawsuit are also known: 1.8% of your claim with a minimum of € 25.

On that website, on the ‘Links & Resources’ page, you can also read how you can download your data from the Grupeer site, so that they have the correct format to participate in the lawsuit. Even if you don’t participate, it can be useful to keep this data as a backup (and you always have the data if the Grupeer website goes down and you still want to participate).

My investments at Grupeer returned € 14.88 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.8%.

 Iuvo

At Iuvo, the interest and repayments received had risen again, so I withdrew 250 euros. Not because I am dissatisfied with this platform, but because I have much more outstanding here than other platforms.

Interest received at Iuvo has never been higher, but I think those were last month’s payments that were delayed. Last month it was very low.

My investments at Iuvo returned € 161.62 last month, and my average return rate is now 11.6%.

 Lender & Spender

Lender & Spender is also relatively unaffected by the crisis. Only a small proportion of borrowers work in the hard-hit sectors. They also see a decrease in the number of loan applications, as people have started to spend less these days.

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 9.22 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.0%.

 Mintos

Mintos has reached two milestones in the past month. Since 2015, investors have now received a total of 100 million euros in interest. And the 300,000th investor has registered. It is clear that Mintos is by far the largest P2P platform in Europe.

Since they launched their App 3 months ago, it has been downloaded 80,000 times. In one of the latest versions they also added the Dutch and Spanish language. If you want to quickly gain insight into your account, that works fine via the app.

My investments at Mintos returned € 94.31 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.5%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 1% cashback bonus over all your investments in the first 90 days.

 NEO Finance

My investments at NEO Finance returned € 10.21 last month, and my average return rate is now -12.9%. As you can see in the chart this is caused by the one-time ‘insurance-fees’ for the provision fund. Over time this should be compensated by the interest payments and the avoided risk of defaults.

 Reinvest24

I expected Reinvest24 to break even this month, and that all costs would now have been offset by revenue. But that will not be until next month, now I’m still 1.20 down. Each investment comes with a 2% fee, used for the real estate purchase. This is one-time and up-front, so it will be compensated by the rental income and increased property valuations over time.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € 3.55 last month, and my average return rate is now just -2.7%.

 Robocash

The Robocash group made a profit of USD 2.35 million in the first three months of this year. Due to the crisis, they have cut costs and drawn up three scenarios for the rest of the year. Even in the worst-case scenario, they’ll still make over $ 10 million in profits in 2020, so it looks like we shouldn’t have to worry about that.

Since the problems with the Philippine division in November the revenues were a lot lower, and my return decreased from 9% to 5.5%. In April and May I received a lot more, which brought my return up to 9.8%.

Robocash has also opened up the secondary market. There are some limitations though: for example, the loans must have a term of one year, and you must have owned them for at least 6 months. But on the positive side; if they are not bought by another investor after 14 days, Robocash will buy them from you. There are no costs onvolved for both the buyer and seller.

My investments at Robocash returned € 15.59 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.8%.

 TFG Crowd

TFG Crowd continues to amaze me, the platform is still there. The Cofediction project has been fully paid back. And apparently they are entering a new market: invoice financing. Suddenly there are many projects of this type on the site.

I haven’t invested much through this platform anymore, so I invested the money that came back from Cofediction into 3 new projects to keep up to date and keep a close eye on the platform.

Today, TFG Crowd adds a business information report to provide insight into the borrower and creditworthiness prepared by Creditsafe (one of the largest credit information providers in the world). The immediate availability of this information is highly desirable, apparently TFG Crowd has understood that more transparency was and is crucial.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 12.19 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.0%.

 TWINO

TWINO has submitted the official application to the Latvian Financial Authority for an investment brokerage license. This is good news for investors because if they get that license, our investments up to 20,000 euros are covered by a guarantee system.

The “Alternative Financial Services Association of Latvia” has issued guidelines for the crowdfunding and crowdlending industry. In addition to a 14 credit companies, there are 3 P2P platform members: Mintos, TWINO, and Debitum. With this self-regulation, they try to provide more transparency and a more reliable market by discouraging potentially unfair players. TWINO has started implementing those guidelines, which can be found here .

My investments at TWINO returned € 34.39 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.4%. The big drop in the chart was caused by currency fluctuations, and I have since then updated my auto-invest to avoid exposure to currency fluctuations.

 Viainvest

Viainvest has its first cashback promotion: you get a 1% cashback bonus on all investments of your auto-invest until June 10th. However, you will not receive the cashback immediately, you must keep your auto-invest active and you will receive the bonus 28 days after the start of the campaign.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 19.76 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.3%.

When you register via this link you’ll receive a 10 euro bonus if you invest 50 euro or more.

Crowdfunding

Beer and investing, two of my hobbies. And I have now combined them: I invested in Beer in a Box . This is a Dutch independent “Craft Beer Discovery Club” and offers varied and changing beer packages with beers from small breweries.

And also fun: based on your Untappd profile, they can automatically fill the box with beers you have never drunk. You can also subscribe, where you get a surprise package with different beers every two months. You can select which beer styles you want to receive or not.

This crowdfund campaign runs through the CrowdAboutNow platform, a Dutch crowdfunding platform. The details about the crowdfund promotion can be found via this link: https://www.beerinabox.nl/crowdfund, and via this link: https://crowdaboutnow.nl/campagnes/beerinabox. This information is all in Dutch though.

This is not a loan, you really become part owner of the company. You will have the opportunity to sell your shares once a year, if you wish. Depending on how much you invest you can also get nice rewards:

The text is in Dutch, but the rewards vary from your name on the new cardboard boxes they send the beer in, a beer package, a beer tasting for 2 persons, even a “free” subscription for 1 or 2.5 years. I decided to take a big step / gamble and invest 12,500 euros. This corresponds to approximately 1% of the shares of Beer in a Box. So quite substantial. In addition, the corresponding reward appealed to me: a subscription for life (as long as you are an investor). It is a lot of money to invest in one go, and a huge gamble, but if I receive such a nice beer package every 2 months, I will at least get something nice out of it 🙂

 CrowdAboutNow

So I just started at the Dutch crowdfunding platform CrowdAboutNow, so I could invest in Beer in a Box. This Dutch platform was established in 2009 and is licensed by the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets and De Nederlandsche Bank. At the moment there are about 12 Dutch companies on the platform in which you can invest.

 Seedrs

A number of campaigns have been completed at Seedrs, which have now appeared in my portfolio overview. There are already quite a few there, so I think I will take it easy for now.

Interestingly, the Dutch crowdfunding platform Lendahand is now also on Seedrs, next to EstateGuru, and I understood that Flender also had a crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs some time ago. Crowdfunding platforms are therefore apparently widely used by crowdlending platforms to finance their growth.

My investments at Seedrs returned € -302.29 last month, which is completely caused by fluctuations of the GBP, and my average return rate is now 9.9%.

When you want to try Seedrs for yourself, you can register via this link and you’ll receive £25 free investment credit after investing £150 or more within 30 days of signing up to Seedrs (around 170 euros).

Stock

Although I have only recently been active at the stock market, I have managed to make some classic beginner mistakes. Fortunately, I still managed to make a big profit.

I had bought 10,000 LOIL at the end of April when oil prices plummeted (at an average rate of € 1.24). By mid-May, the price had climbed sharply to just above 2 euros. Then it slumped again, and the news came that oil prices were expected to fall yet again in June. So I sold everything at a rate of € 1.81 with the aim to buy them again later if the price had dropped a lot. Only that did not happen, the prices rose again above 2 euros. That plan failed, but I did made a nice profit. Originally the intention was to keep them for a longer period of time, so that plan failed too. Don’t speculate with something you want to hold on to for the long term.

When the prices continued to rise after that, I was out of oil and saw my plan to take advantage of the rising prices shattered. But because I expect the prices to rise much further, I jumped in again. That was also a mistake, because not long after that it collapsed again. So I bought them too expensive.

On the other hand, I bought that oil ETF with the profit I made, so if you look at it that way then I actually have them for free now..

 BinckBank

There is no waiting list at Binck Bank, which is the case at DEGIRO. DEGIRO is a lot more pleasant to work with, but Binck has a major advantage: it is a bank and therefore falls under the guarantee system. As with a savings account, your money is guaranteed up to a maximum of 100,000 euros by the government.

The big profit this month is largely due to oil, just like with DEGIRO. Because Binck Bank works fine but just a little less pleasant, I decided to use this account to hold shares and ETFs for longer. And to stop doing that at both DEGIRO and Binck at the same time. In this way I have three accounts with different goals and strategies, and in the long term it will become clear how these perform against each other.

My investments at BinckBank returned € 4,372.05 last month, and my average return rate is now 570.5%. The profit was made in just one month, so the 570% does not really make sense (but this is the XIRR on a annual basis).

 DEGIRO

Stock investments have become popular these days, as there is a waiting list for DEGIRO. As I understand more than 30,000 people are waiting for their DEGIRO account.

Just like with Binck, I added 5,000 euros here last month.

My investments at DEGIRO returned € 3,422.29 last month, and my average return rate is now 220.4%.

 ING

Despite the fact that the investment account at ING is hopeless, I nevertheless deposited money there again. I decided to give my 3 investment accounts a different purpose. For ING, this is long-term retention, with the number of transactions being minimal. Then it is still workable.

The idea is to invest in both gold and an ETF that follows the economy. Historically, the prices of gold and the economy are (somewhat) countercyclical: if the economy is not doing well, investors ‘flee’ to gold, causing the gold price to rise. If the economy improves again, more gold will be sold to buy the cheaper shares and the gold price will get lower.

The intention is to maintain a 50-50 ratio, and invest half in gold and half in an ETF that follows the Amsterdam AEX. Of course, this could also have been an ETF that follows the global economy. With both initial deposits and periodic deposits, the intention is to buy gold with half of the invested amount and the ETF with the other half. Prices naturally fluctuate, so you don’t always buy the same amount of each.

Over time, the ratio will also no longer be 50-50, due to the varying rates. The plan is to try to take advantage of this, by rebalancing the portfolio periodically (eg 1x per year). For example, if the ETF has risen in value and the ratio has changed to “60% ETF – 40% gold”, then I’m going to sell some of the ETF and use that money to buy the cheaper gold (which has probably fallen in price). If a few years later that gold has risen again I can do the same and sell some gold to buy that ETF cheaply.

This is really something for the long term. Over a long period of time, both the gold price and the economy have risen, so both gold and the ETF can provide a reasonable return. This rebalancing strategy sould in theory provide a return that is better than investing in gold or ETF alone. In the short term, however, the total value can drop significantly, so this is only suitable for a multi-year plan.

My investments at ING returned € 49.07 last month, and my average return rate is now -2.2%.

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And finally…

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Below you can also find the link to my previous posts, where you can find my tips and results of the previous months.