December 2020: happy new year!

What a turbulent year 2020 was, I’ve rarely seen a year with so many ups and downs. It started dramatically with the fall of Envestio and Kuetzal. Envestio and Kuetzal were a wakeup call to me and other investors, P2P can give good results but you have to become and remain more critical. I think the new European crowdfunding legislation will help a lot with that, the increased transparancy will ensure that the platforms become safer for investors. And separate the wheat from the chaff.

And then Covid-19 came into play. That was a big shock for everyone, but it was also very well visible at the stock market. Many stocks went into a free fall, and at that moment I decided to invest some of my savings on the stock market. And especially in stocks that had fallen enormously, but from companies that are so large that you can expect them to recover anyway. And then it was a matter of waiting until things slowly got better.

Reports of the vaccines started getting out towards the end of the year, and then things started to go in all directions. And by all directions I mean: it went up considerably at the stock market, but everything else went down again. Let’s hope that sufficient vaccines will be available soon, so that everything goes back to normal again.

What I hope will remain is the increase in value of my stock market portfolios. It shows that every coin has two sides, and that there are also good sides to a crisis.

Fortunately, the people I know survived the Corona crisis fairly unscathed. Reasonable, because here and there people have suffered from it, but we have not lost anyone. I sincerely hope that you are all just as lucky.

Before we go to the numbers, I would like to wish everyone good luck and health in 2021, and that we can all realize a good return. At the turn of the year I (virtually) toasted my family and friends, tonight I will drink a beer to the health and success of all of you, my readers and followers!

Portfolio overview December 2020

Last month my portfolio increased by € 3,353.22 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 10.1%. The table below shows the details for each category.

And just one more (repeated remark) don’t forget to note the value of your investments. You will need these for your tax return, at least in The Netherlands. But it is also wise to regularly list everything for yourself. Hopefully you will find out that 2020 was a good year in some respects!

Passive income per month

The extreme highs and lows on the stock market prevent me from adequately determine the passive income that my investments can generate when I stop working. That is why I now calculate the 6-month moving average of my passive income.

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

Activities

To show you how little effort is involved when investing 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.

Crowdlending

The next year will be interesting in the P2P market. Or exciting, it depends a bit on how much you invested in Envestio, Kuetzal, and Grupeer. I am also curious about the effects of the new European legislation.

The XIRR column contains the annualized rate of return since my first deposit into that platform. Click on a column header to sort the table by that column, twice to reverse the sort order. I have an overview page for each platform, you can click on the magnifier glass to visit that page.

 Bondora

My investments at Bondora returned € 26.85 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

 Brickstarter

This month I invested the money that I had left at Brickstarter in a new project in Cádiz (San Telmo 2 0 4, Cádiz). Brickstarter had already had their eye on this apartment in the historic center in February when it was for sale for 134,000 euros, and now the crisis has reduced the price to 93,500 euros: 30% cheaper.

That sounds like a good opportunity to realize a significant increase in value over the next few years. The project was therefore quickly fully funded, although this could also be because EvoEstate had also published it as a ‘skin in the game’ project.

My investments at Brickstarter returned € 0.12 last month, and my average return rate is now 2.6%.

 Bulkestate

Last month, Bulkestate celebrated its 4th anniversary, this platform with real estate projects started in December 2016.

As a birthday promotion they have a cashback promotion for three months. If you invest at least € 4,000 before March 12, you will receive a cashback bonus of 1% on March 17. You can divide that over several projects, so you can still provide some spread. But you only get that bonus if you invest more than 4,000 euros, which is bad for your spread across platforms, unless of course you are a large investor.

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 37.89 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Crowdestate

Crowdestate sends a monthly overview with statistics about the platform. On the site you can also find many statistics, and you can download and view all the data of the projects yourself.

In November, 13 new projects were published, which is a record for this platform. However, the number of projects in arrears has also increased to 40, just as many as in May:

In total, almost 300 projects have now appeared on this platform, but if we only look at the open projects, those 40 projects amount to 30% of the total. I think it makes sense that the number of recent months was lower, because payment agreements have probably been made because of the crisis, and of course those will also expire.

However, since 2014, only 2 projects have really defaulted, so I assume that there is a good chance that these projects with payment arrears will get back on track. Although, of course, it remains to be seen what the long-term consequences of the crisis are.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 25.03 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.4%.

 Crowdestor

At the end of December I withdrew 230 euros from Crowdestor, and this was neatly on my own bank account the next working day. Thus, this platform is slowly dropping to my 5k limit. Next week, the first repayment is expected from the Timberland project, in which I have invested more than 1500 euros. Everything should be paid off by January 10, but according to the latest reports, it will now be the end of February or March.

There is only one project that I have invested more in at Crowdestor, and that is ‘Energy production plant’. I invested 2,500 euros in this almost two years ago, when it was still quiet in the P2P market. Now I wouldn’t do that so quickly, at least not in projects and platforms that give such high interest rates, too risky. This project does pay monthly interest and has not yet skipped any payment, so I am hopeful that everything will be paid off in April.

Due to the very high interest rates, this platform falls into the ‘high risk’ category for me. That is why I will be very happy if I actually get these amounts back and can withdraw them.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 175.01 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.1%.

 EstateGuru

At EstateGuru I have 18 projects in my portfolio, and those investments are mainly done by the auto-invest. Many projects pay the interest per quarter or (half) year, so interest income is not that stable. None of the 18 projects are in arrears, and I have good experiences with this platform. That is also the reason that I invested in this platform through Seedrs last year.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 18.63 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.6%.

 EvoEstate

December was a super month at EvoEstate. Last January I started at this platform, and the first project I invested in is ‘Magellan’. Via EvoEstate you can invest in projects with affiliated crowdlending platforms, in this case that was Urbanitae. The project was completed a little earlier than expected and has yielded a little more. The invested 200 euros was repaid early this month, together with € 27.91 in interest. Converted is that 16.3% interest on an annual basis, slightly more than the 15% that was indicated in advance.

The project ‘Savanorių pr. 178, Vilkpedės districts, Vilnius’ has been repaid this month, along with 4 euros in interest. That doesn’t seem like much, but this project paid the interest monthly, while the Magellan project paid all interest in one card at the end of the term. And 4 euros doesn’t seem like much, but there were enough months this year in which this was the total revenue in the month …

I manually invested the money this month, even though I have the auto invest on. The auto-invest only invests in the so-called ‘skin in the game’ projects, and there were none. I have now divided it into 7 different projects, 3 countries (France, Germany and Austria) and 3 platforms (Raizers, Rendity, and Bergfürst).

EvoEstate shows quite a lot of information about the projects, and it is wise to always read this carefully before deciding to invest. Most projects pay the interest annually, personally I prefer to see that per month. Chances are that I will have another super month in a year’s time, but without those kinds of peaks, the return is a lot easier to follow. I have now decided to invest equally small amounts in many different projects, also a kind of risk spreading. Now the auto-invest can take over again.

My investments at EvoEstate returned € 34.25 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Fast Invest

Fast Invest has renewed the website, but in my opinion not in the right direction. I find it less clear, but of course it is mainly about the internal operation of the platform. Maybe it’s your thing if you like dull gray.

Fast Invest is a risky platform, in addition to offering loans with very high interest rates, it is one of the few platforms that does not disclose information about the loan originators. And that of course makes it difficult to estimate the degree of risk. According to Fast Invest, this was not possible because of the contracts with the originators.

Fast Invest has already promised to do this differently for new contracts, and it has. They now offer Spanish and Polish loans from FinHero at 18% interest. There is no information on their website about the lenders, I have asked if they can provide this information. When I have received their answer I will of course post this.

Because I consider this a high-risk platform, and it is also above my self-set limit of 5,000 euros per platform, I try to withdraw funds here as soon as possible. At the beginning of December I withdrew 215 euros, which was in my bank account a week later. And on December 28, I took out another 1,250 euros. There are costs involved, but not much: one and a half euros. It will take a few days, when they confirm that the payment will be processed on January 7th.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 91.82 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.1%.

 Flender

Lately my auto-invest at Flender has been investing 3 times a month, last month it was 50, 56 and 60 euros. I am really pleased with Flender, they have annuity loans where a piece of loan is repaid every month in addition to the interest. I like to see invested funds returned quickly and then automatically invested again. That is good for the returns, but also makes it easier to withdraw money quickly if you want to.

My investments at Flender returned € 21.32 last month, and my average return rate is now 7.4%.

 Funding Circle NL

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 17.52 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 Grupeer

Last month my account value at Grupeer did not change, and my average return rate is now 9.3%.

 Iuvo

Most of my loans with Iuvo are from the originator CBC / KFP. As I have written before, Iuvo is in legal action against this Polish lender. It appears that two applications have been filed, one to file for bankruptcy and one to restructure the company. It is now up to the Polish court to decide what to do. In any case, it does not seem to be getting any more positive.

Last month my account value at Iuvo did not change, and my average return rate is now 9.6%.

 Lender & Spender

The Lender & Spender dashboard shows how many of your investments are in arrears, which is very little actually:

In addition, you can also download an overview of the loans in which you invest, so that you can also make all kinds of overviews yourself. Then you see, for example, that 99.2% of the loans are completely up to date and only 0.5% of the loans have a payment arrears of 3 months or longer:

You can also look at how the distribution is, and then you see that the investments are spread fairly evenly over the loans. Investing is automatic, you have no influence on this. But it is good to see that automatic investing works very well, the highest amount invested in a single loan is about 6 euros, and with the vast majority of loans the amount is below 2 euros:

So there are very few problem loans, and so a lot has never been invested in them. I call that ‘safe’ investing. Although you can of course never call investing safe, there are always risks involved. But these figures at least give me the idea that the risks with this platform are a lot lower than with the other platforms.

Of course, the return is also somewhat lower than the other platforms, because higher returns go hand in hand with higher risks and that of course also works the other way. Lender & Spender states that the return after costs is 4.1%, which is enough to offset taxes and inflation, and then grow it even a little bit. You can’t say that about a savings account.

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 11.04 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Mintos

For the fifth consecutive year, Mintos has won the AltFi’s “People’s Choice Award”. Awards have been presented to the fintech and alternative financial sector for 7 years, and this year there were 82 companies nominated.

My investments at Mintos returned € 49.00 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.4%.

 NEO Finance

At NEO Finance it is now possible to invest in loans with a long term of 120 months. The loans are only provided to borrowers with the highest A and A + ratings, and the interest rate is 1% higher than the other loans. Of course, 10 years is a long time so anything can happen, but you can of course also use that extra 1% interest to pay the provision fund. The disadvantage is that you have to tick off the costs of the provision fund in advance, but after that the payment and repayment is guaranteed. If you want to invest in this, you have to check your auto-invest settings.

Sometimes it is annoying that you have to sign a contract with every change you make to, for example, your auto-invest but it is super fast and simple. This platform is one of the few to have an EMI license (unlimited e-money institution license), which means that everything is taken a lot more seriously. A small price to pay for extra security, I guess.

My investments at NEO Finance returned € 18.44 last month, and my average return rate is now 0.4%.

 PeerBerry

I started at PeerBerry in October and I like the platform. It gives a stable 11% return and the business looks stable. The companies that wtheycollaborate with are also performing well. For example, PeerBerry published last month that Gofingo, which has offered about 12% of the loans on PeerBerry since the beginning of 2018, expects the total profit in 2020 to be approximately 2 million euros.

My investments at PeerBerry returned € 9.43 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.6%.

 Reinvest24

Reinvest24 made the website available in Spanish, and also translated the blog posts. I think this kind of effort is a sign of reliability. The platforms that turned out to be scams had did not bother, and only created an English-language website. Reinvest24 is available in English, German, Latvian, Russian, and now Spanish.

Last month, Reinvest also published a first ‘buy-to-sell’ project in Spain. Managed by Reinvest24, a building with 10 apartments is bought, renovated and sold again. Unlike other projects, this will not be rented out.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € 18.09 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.4%.

 Robocash

At Robocash it is now also possible for companies to invest up to € 180,000 per year.

In 2020, the number of investors at Robocash will have risen to 12,000 and they have financed 200 million euros in loans throughout the year. The platform has paid a total of 2 million euros in interest to investors, half of which in 2020. That shows how this platform is on the rise.

My investments at Robocash returned € 11.74 last month, and my average return rate is now 11.9%.

 TFG Crowd

TFG Crowd is one of the reasons I’m looking forward to the new European crowdfunding rules coming next year. Either it becomes clear that it is not a solid and reliable platform and cannot comply with the rules, or they pass the test. The latter does not seem to me the most likely scenario given the promised interest rates of 24% or more.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 11.39 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.7%.

 TWINO

A survey by TWINO among their investors shows that half of them have been investing via this platform for 3 years or more:

In the first Covid wave, investors delayed their investments, but not very long. And most investors indicate that they will continue to invest via this platform:

I must say that I am also satisfied with this platform myself. Little news is happening around this platform, they are quite stable. And also large with a European market share of almost 6%.

My investments at TWINO returned € 35.30 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.7%.

 Viainvest

The VIA SMS Group, to which Viainvest belongs, has published the preliminary figures for the first half of 2020. Net turnover increased slightly compared to the first half of 2019, by 0.4% to 13.8 million euros. The net profit is a lot lower, and comes to 588 thousand euros.

The group is also busy developing the VIALET payment platform, which they introduced in Poland along with a payment card in October.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 21.14 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.0%.

Crowdfunding

Recently I have expanded the overview pages of the platforms a bit, and added the settings of my auto-invests where applicable.

Next year I expect the merger of Seedrs and Crowdcube to be completed. I am curious what that will look like, although I will still have to puzzle a lot to see how I should administer it in my blog software.

 CrowdAboutNow

Currently there are 17 projects open on CrowdAboutNow to invest in. There are no campaigns for stocks, just loans or pre-sales. With most you can even choose both options. Most interest rates are between 3% and 5%.

I myself have only invested in 1 project here, and in May I became a shareholder in Beer in a Box via this platform. I now enjoy a box of new beers every 2 months, and every time I am pleasantly surprised. Such a beer subscription is highly recommended for the beer lover.

 Crowdcube

Of all investments through Crowdcube in 2020, 88% was within the United Kingdom. Of the 12% out there, Mintos was by far the largest / most successful.

Unlike CrowdAboutNow, at Crowdcube it are all stock campaigns, there are now 18 open. This is a risky way of investing, because you don’t know if the company will survive. On the other hand, providing a loan to a start-up company is also very risky. Loans usually have a term of a few years, so if a company does not make it, you will also lose your investment with a loan. That is why I feel more in favor of a crowdfund investment in exchange for shares, so that you can benefit if the growth continues.

 Seedrs

Seedrs has reached the big milestone: more than GBP 1 billion has now been invested through the platform. I myself contributed to that by investing £ 1,500 in Loowatt .

My investments at Seedrs returned € 115.64 last month, and my average return rate is now 5.7%.

Stocks

Since March my investments on the stock exchange have become worth almost 50% more. Let’s just say: don’t waste a good crisis. I think it will be a lot more difficult to achieve a good return next year, everything still seems very restless.

 BinckBank

This month, two of my stop-limit orders were executed at BinckBank. I had set it up to cash in my profit on ING and ABN AMRO shares in the event that the price fell sharply.

In May I had bought 520 ING shares at a price of 4.94 and now sold for 7.55. Taking the order costs into account, this amounts to a profit of 51.4% in half a year. The same month I had also bought 200 shares of ABN AMRO at 5.95 and sold this month for 8.60, which equates to a 42.7% profit. Not bad either!

Since then, the ING share has risen again, while ABN AMRO has fallen further. It is wise to protect investments against large losses or to cash in your profit, with stop-loss orders and stop-limit orders. But I still have to get used to that.

Now I have a lot to invest again, but it is now a lot more difficult to choose than six months ago when all prices had plummeted due to the crisis (then it seemed, in a manner of speaking, like a price shooting at the fair).

My investments at BinckBank returned € 1,018.79 last month, and my average return rate is now 101.1%.

 DEGIRO

It was another good month at DEGIRO. The cybersecurity ETF and stocks in particular are doing well.

My investments at DEGIRO returned € 1,702.32 last month, and my average return rate is now 62.4%.

 ING

Last month I received € 4.54 in dividend at ING from my investment in AEX ETF (38 times 0.1196 EUR). That’s a bonus of course. In the long term, it is also said that you are better off investing on the stock exchange if you provide diversification by investing in ETFs instead of working with ‘individual’ shares yourself. Some ETFs pay dividends separately, and others reinvest it for you. You can select your ETFs on this.

My investments at ING returned € 113.74 last month, and my average return rate is now 7.6%.

Blog traffic

What an unexpected growth in subscribers at the end of the year, really awesome to see a 7% increase. I think there will be interesting posts again next year, as we move towards the introduction of the European crowdfunding rules. If you don’t want to miss anything, or sometimes want to receive important messages and alerts halfway through the month, you can also sign up as a subscriber. It is free 🙂

And finally…

That was it for this monthly update. You can subscribe via the contact page and you’ll receive an email the moment a new update is published. Or just visit again next month, that’s up to you.

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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.