February 2021: new strategy on the stock market

This month my investments on the stock exchange are yielding more than my crowdlending investments again. But surprisingly, crowdfunding takes second place this month. Brickowner shows that equity crowdfunding could also generate good returns, although it depends of course on luck and the right choices.

This month I will start with a new strategy on the stock market. I call it new and a strategy, but I didn’t really have a strategy yet and it is also more of an experiment. I’m going to use my ING account for this so you can read more about it there.

Portfolio overview February 2021

Last month my portfolio increased by € 8,556.32 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 13.4%. The table below shows the details for each category.

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 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

At Bondora, the statistics page shows that the overall net return is now 8.6%. Last month it was 8.8%, but these could of course be normal fluctuations.

When I go to Bondora’s public stats page, not all charts seem to work. I don’t know if that is due to my system or the Bondora website. In any case, I will monitor and register the net return myself in the near future, to see which way it is moving. In my memory this was a bit higher a few months ago.

My investments at Bondora returned € 23.63 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

 Brickstarter

The last few months my return at Brickstarter has been stable, at 2.6%. This platform mainly relies on short-term rental of the properties in which investments have been made, so hopefully tourism will soon be given free rein again.

My investments at Brickstarter returned € 3.44 last month, and my average return rate is now 2.6%.

 Bulkestate

Yesterday I saw that the value of my Bulkestate account had unexpectedly dropped by 90 euros. This seemed to be caused by the ‘Vienības Alley’ project, which was supposed to be repaid on March 5. Instead, only about 10% was paid back and the project closed. Strange because the LTV (Loan To Value) stands at 65%, so the first rank mortgage on the collateral should prove enough to pay off the loan.

I asked Bulkestate for clarification, and a few hours later I got a message from Bulkestate that it was caused by a technical glitch due to a partial repayment and that it was resolved. When I checked the project was also adjusted:

The payment is shown as actual revenue, so it looks like the project was closed before the principal was repayed. That is scheduled for 3 days from now.

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 159.65 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.6%.

 Crowdestate

The last year and a half my return at Crowdestate has fluctuated around 10-11%. And that is quite high for a real estate platform. Loans backed with real estate generally can be counted as lower risk.

According to the platform reports that the average return of the investors is over 15%, but I myself do not invest in the projects with the highest interest rates. A higher interest rate also means a higher risk.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 31.88 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.3%.

 Crowdestor

At Crowdestor my free amount has now risen to almost 400 euros. In addition to interest, I have also received partial refunds from a number of projects that were behind in payment. INCH² – Increase of operating capital has now repaid 50 euros of the 500 euros I invested. If this payment had not been received this month, Crowdestor would have filed for bankruptcy of that company. Just in time. Well, on time… The loan should have been repaid by October.

‘Timberland investment’ should have paid back the last $ 1040 of my $ 1,516 investment in January. That has not happened yet, they have repaid only 134 euros so far. But they have made an additional interest payment of 24 euros to make up for that.

I will withdraw the free amount again next week, and then this platform will also be almost under my limit of 5,000 euros. This is the maximum amount that I have set for myself that I want to invest in a single P2P platform. I consider some platforms to be a greater risk, and I want to use a lower limit for that. Crowdestor will probably fall in that category as well.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 115.30 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.4%.

 EstateGuru

Last month brought another good return for my EstateGuru account. This is one of the first platforms I have invested in and I am still satisfied with it. Last year I even invested a bit in the platform itself through the equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

Of the 19 projects in which my auto-invest has invested at EstateGuru, four are in arrears. Two missed the interest payment in January, and two in February. EstateGuru has good statistics, including for reclaiming investor money on troubled projects, so I’m not worried right now.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 38.03 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.0%.

 EvoEstate

EvoEstate has announced a few changes. For example, costs are charged if you want to sell investments on the secondary market: namely 2%. That is quite substantial, because if you want to get rid of your investments earlier, your return will immediately be a lot lower.

The minimum investment amount will also increase. This was 50 euros and that will be increased to 100 euros. I think this is actually worse than the costs for the secondary market: because of this you it takes longer to re-invest your received interest. As a result, the interest-on-interest effect is less and so is your potential return in the long term. Certainly smaller investors will notice this.

Last Friday evening EvoEstate emailed about a small unexpected bonus: this weekend every investor received a cashback bonus of 0.5% on all investments. I did not have enough free funds, and there was not enough time to make a deposit, so it would have been nice if this was announced earlier:

My investments at EvoEstate returned € 5.36 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.2%.

 Fast Invest

Sunday it was a bit of a shock. It was not possible to log in to Fast Invest all day. I’ve been waiting for my payouts for a while, just like many other investors. It wouldn’t be the first platform to suddenly go dark and make investors lose money. So then you immediately start thinging about worst case scenarios…

Fortunately it was possible to log in again monday morning. The payouts are still waiting, but I am a little less sad about that now. Seeing that your money has not yet been transferred (but that an interest payment is accruing) is in one point the same as seeing a platform disappear: you don’t have your money. But now I still have the hope and expectation that it will still be transferred. Fast Invest is quite behind with the payouts, but I occasionally hear that people are still receiving payments. I personally received a payout in December.

The question is also whether Fast Invest is squeezing and throttling the payouts because they get so many requests that they can’t execute it all that quickly, or whether they are having trouble collecting the money to be paid out. The latter could be the case if the platform is not completely honest, but that is of course difficult to say.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 31.79 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.1%.

 Flender

At Flender the amount of loans with payment arrears in my portfolio is now 135 euros. I have now invested a little over 3000 euros through this platform, so that amounts to just over 4%. A month ago it was only 38 euros, so it has increased. Something to keep an eye on.

My investments at Flender returned € 12.72 last month, and my average return rate is now 7.4%.

 Funding Circle NL

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 12.89 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%. It is not possible to invest into new projects here anymore, and principal is payed out to my bank account each month, so the interest amounts also slowly decrease every month.

 Grupeer

Also this month there is no news about Grupeer. So the only (positive) thing I can say is that the website is still up and running, otherwise there is no activity. The motto is to stay away, even if they become active again or start / can accept deposits.

Last month my account value at Grupeer did not change, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 Iuvo

There is no further news from Iuvo about the lender CBC / KFP from Poland. The latest news is from December that the Polish court has to decide between a bankruptcy or restructuring. I haven’t had interest in three months, but I’m more concerned about getting my investments back. Last month, Iuvo won a lawsuit in Georgia, taking over all assets from a originator to resume repayments. So I still have some hope that things can turn out ok.

Last month my account value at Iuvo did not change, and my average return rate is now 9.2%.

 Lender & Spender

Despite the crisis, the Dutch platform Lender & Spender is doing quite well. The statistics even show that the number of loans with payment arrears is even slowly falling, it is now below 0.4%:

A payment arrangement is made with some borrowers if there are problems because of the Corona crisis. The statistics show that that number is even smaller, well below 0.1%:

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 11.02 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Max Crowdfund

Last month I registered with a new platform: the Dutch Max Crowdfund. Somehow it feels safe to have a platform that is based in your own country.

The company behind this platform was founded in 2016 and has been registered with the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets since last year. There are more than 65 thousand registered investors and 1.7 million in investments has been raised. The average return is 7.9%.

I just haven’t had the chance to invest here yet, because all active loans are already fully funded. It can be seen that some needed 6 to 23 days, but there are also projects that had already achieved this in 2 hours or even half an hour.

All transactions are recorded via its own blockchain and are therefore public. This of course sounds very modern and advanced, but it is not that this immediately implies extra security for investors.

 Mintos

At the beginning of this month, the news came that Mintos has reached a major milestone: 6 billion euros in loans have now been financed through the platform. That is something other platforms can only dream of for the time being. Mintos controls 45% of the European market, the number two (Credimi) about 11%. TWINO is number 3 with almost 6%. There are more than 50 P2P platforms in Europe, so that shows what a giant Mintos is. It is important to remember that, as with many other platforms, the originators provide a possible buyback guarantee, and not the Mintos platform itself. Even though Mintos is so big, the quality and reliability of the lenders is just as important.

Mintos has adjusted the settings for the conservative investment strategy, investing only in loans from lenders that have less than 3% in overdue loans. For other strategies this is 10%.

Mintos is also working on the rollout of 2FA (2 Factor Authentication), as this is mandatory according to European guidelines and Mintos is in the process of applying for a license. At 2FA you have to use another way to identify yourself in addition to your password. This can be done, for example, via a unique code that you receive via an SMS or security app. It is wise to set this up with all your investment accounts to provide extra security for access to your accounts and money. It is strange that they seem to choose a code via SMS, it has been shown that this is less secure than TOTP. It is probably easier to implement, although Mintos now seems to consider keeping 2FA via for instance the Google Authenticator app as well.

My investments at Mintos returned € 67.74 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.6%.

 NEO Finance

At NEO Finance I have seen the monthly income decline somewhat in recent months, but on the other hand my return rate is climbing. With this platform you can indicate whether you want to use the Provision Fund when making an investment. Refund is then guaranteed for a small fee. A buyback guarantee, but one that you can choose for yourself. You have to pay the costs completely at the start of the investment, so that reduces your return in the beginning. But what kind of price tag do you attach to the certainty that you will get your money back… Many platforms also have a buyback guarantee, but often it is opaque or the pot is too small to cover all outstanding loans.

NEO Finance has an EMI license (Electronic Money Institution) and therefore has to raise the standards a bit higher. For example, every investor here has his own IBAN account and you also deposit your money there instead of an account of the company itself.

In the first few months I paid quite a lot for the Provision Fund, which is why my return was negative. Now my return is climbing by about half a percent point every month, and if I look purely at the last three months, the income amounts to an annual return of 8-9%.

My investments at NEO Finance returned € 15.09 last month, and my average return rate is now 1.6%.

 PeerBerry

I have been investing with PeerBerry for about 5 months now, and during that time it has proven to be a stable part of my portfolio. I do not hear any negative signals, and the income is stable and good.

My investments at PeerBerry returned € 9.44 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.4%.

 Reinvest24

My investments at Reinvest24 are now starting to run smoothly. The return is increasing every month and is now at 4.4%. When I look at the earnings for the past two months, it amounts to about 10% on an annual basis, so I expect my return to continue to grow significantly in the coming months.

Of course, it also helps that I haven’t made any new investments here recently, because there are costs involved that lower your return in the short term. Fortunately, these costs have now been halved to 1% instead of 2%.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € 19.50 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Robocash

Robocash celebrated its fourth anniversary on February 21. To mark the occasion, they have a campaign running until March 10, with which you can win prizes. You will receive a ticket for every 500 euros that you invest in, and you can find those tickets in your profile at the end of the campaign. On March 25, the prize-winning tickets will be drawn, but there is a ‘catch’: you are not allowed to make any withdrawals until then.

Robocash has added a new subsidiary operating in Kazakhstan. A lender was already active there, but the new one is fully part of the Robocash group and the entire group guarantees the loans. To invest in those loans, you have to manually adjust your auto-invest.

A new category of (longer-term) loans has also been added, with an interest rate of 12.7%. Again, you have to adjust your auto-invest yourself. There is a clear overview of the terms and interest rates of the loans:

My investments at Robocash returned € 10.73 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.1%.

 TFG Crowd

For the first time TFG Crowd has sent a message that payments for a project are delayed:

So now it gets interesting: this project has a buyback guarantee, which means that after 60 days, TFG Crowd will pay both the investment and the accrued interest. I am curious what will happen and how communication will take place. Although that will of course take another 60 days, unless the payment is received within that time.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 8.81 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.5%.

 TWINO

At TWINO I stopped the auto-invest last month, and now there is more than 500 euros available to withdraw. I will do that next week. I am going to reduce my position here, because some questions about the viability of TWINO were raised by the accountant.

My investments at TWINO returned € 33.58 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.7%.

 Viainvest

The last investment by the auto-invest of Viainvest was on January 22. In the meantime, the free amount has risen to 520 euros.

When I looked, there were no loans available to invest in. My auto-invest is set at 11-12% interest rates, so it may be that some loans were available this month with a lower interest rate.

As an experiment, I created a second auto investment, which is allowed to invest a little bit in loans with a lower interest rate. If loans become available, I should see that in the new (small) transactions:

My investments at Viainvest returned € 19.48 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.0%.

Crowdfunding

 CrowdAboutNow

Most of the projects at CrowdAboutNow are loans, and so far I have a strong preference for an investment in shares with crowdfunding platforms. That is a lot more uncertain, but the possible profit is also a lot higher. Until now I have only invested in Beer in a Box here. I still really like that, every two months I receive a beer package with a surprising selection of beers. It is all very flexible, you can also buy individual packages or give them as a present.

Last month my account value at CrowdAboutNow did not change, and my average return rate is still 0.0%.

 Crowdcube

The merger of Crowdcube and Seedrs is under investigation by the CMA, the UK competition authority. Both platforms are big names in the equity crowdfunding world, and there is concern that after the merger the choice for entrepreneurs looking for financing will be too limited.

Normally, such an investigation consists of two phases, first it is examined whether the merger can be allowed or whether further investigation is needed. Crowdcube and Seedrs have asked to skip the first phase and start the investigation immediately, because it is believed that this would happen anyway.

It is therefore not yet certain whether the merger will proceed, and it may also happen that requirements or conditions are imposed on the merger. Both Crowdcube and Seedrs have indicated that a merger is essential to compete with venture capitalists, among others. It is possible for third parties to have their say or raise objections until April 28, so we will have to wait a while for more clarity.

Last month my account value at Crowdcube did not change, and my average return rate is still 0.0%.

 Seedrs

Seedrs pleasantly surprised me this month with an update on Brickowner: the stock price increased from £ 5.77 to £ 7.35 in February:

I invested in this at the end of 2018 when the price of the stock was £ 3.24. This can also be seen in the price history, which can be found on the site:

My other investments here haven’t gone up in value yet, so so far this is my only success story in equity crowdfunding. On the other hand, no investments have fallen in value or collapsed yet. So there may be more to follow.

These price increases do show that it is possible to get a return on your money through equity crowdfunding. My investment has now more than doubled in value, and if I could sell it on the secondary market then that profit can actually be cashed in.

I’m just holding them for now, I think they will increase a lot more in the future. That is not a guarantee, of course, they can also decrease in value again. After all, this remains a risky way of investing.

My investments at Seedrs returned € 1,627.21 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.3%.

Stock

 BinckBank

BinckBank is the biggest riser in my portfolio this month. This is mainly due to my investment in oil. Not very green, but the improving economy makes it clear that we still have major steps to take in terms of climate. For now I like to take this increase. I bought LOIL for 2.40 each and now that the prices are rising I am selling it in small batches. This month I sold a few at a price of 5.50.

My investments at BinckBank returned € 4,675.28 last month, and my average return rate is now 130.9%.

 DEGIRO

My investments at DEGIRO returned € 1,703.20 last month, and my average return rate is now 66.6%.

 ING

This month a small decrease at ING, but of course it cannot always be a party. Here I have invested in gold and an economic ETF (which follows the Dutch AEX stock exchange index), and that is really for the long term.

As of this writing, I decided to deposit a small amount into my investment account every month, and buy a little bit of the gold ETF and AEX ETF. With this I want to test an investment strategy that is simple and does not take much time. You also don’t have to be an expert or work on it every minute, day or week. The description is actually the most difficult: countercyclical investing with rebalancing.

It’s about gold and the stock market / economy. They are a bit countercyclical; if one rises, chances are that the other is falling. When the economy deteriorates, investors want to cash in on their profits and buy precious metals as a safe haven, and when the stock market picks up it is sold again to stock up on stocks cheaply.

In the long run, both gold and an ETF that tracks the economy are good investments, so investing a little bit in both each month is already a good long-term strategy. I choose two ETFs: one that tracks the gold price and one that tracks the economy. And no small obscure ones with little volume, to increase reliability and liquidity. So all in all a nice simple wallet. I already have a gold ETF and an AEX ETF, so I’m going to use them. For example, I could have chosen an MSCI World ETF or an ETF that follows the S&P 500, but I already have that AEX ETF and does not seem a bad choice to me.

Every month I buy a bit of the two ETFs. I start with 50 euros per month for each, so I put in 100 euros per month. The prices are not nice multiples of 50 euros, so I cannot invest everything every month, but I will try to use the remainder the next month.

And then the rebalancing. Besides investing once a month, that’s the only other action and I only plan to do it once or twice a year. So those are not many times to be active with the portfolio, and this is also a simple step. The goal is to get the two ETFs back to about 50% of my portfolio. For example, if my gold ETFs are worth more than my AEX ETFs, then I will sell gold and use that to buy some AEX until they are balanced again. The idea behind this is to cash in the profit of the increased ETF and invest in the other ETF that has become (relatively) cheaper at that time. There is then the chance that the cheaper ETF will increase in value, and then I will benefit extra from that. And later I can cash that profit back and buy the other ETF. If I can keep repeating that a little bit, my long-term profit could be higher than investing in both ETFs separately…

I stick to these two ETFs, which is easy and clear. And at ING you do not pay transaction costs for certain ETFs, so that also makes a difference. It is important to choose large established ETFs for reliability and tradability. That way I don’t have to look at it every month and I don’t have to worry about survival. For example, shares do not fit in this strategy.

I have no idea if it will work, and it is really something for the longer term. In the short term it could turn out wrong. But I think it’s interesting enough to see how things turn out. If you follow my blog you can see how this works out, you don’t have to try it yourself. Whatever you do, never forget the most important rule of investing: never invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

Last month my account value at ING decreased by € 79.45, and my average return rate is now 5.8%.

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.