April 2021: stock market: all-time-high, next crash eminent?

The stock market is doing really well, last year’s crash has been fully compensated. In fact, things have never gone better, while the crisis is still underway and long-term consequences are not yet known. So it could well be that a significant correction will take place again. Later you can read how I intend to prepare for this.

This month I looked at whether I can organize the crowdlending platforms differently, because I’ve got quite a lot of them in my portfolio now. I want to split it into two categories: platforms in Western Europe and platforms in Eastern Europe. However, I have to make a lot of changes to my self-written software for this, so I don’t expect to finish this split until next month.

So for the time being everything is still a bit the same here, let’s quickly go to the numbers.

Portfolio overview April 2021

Last month my portfolio increased by € 736.72 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 12.6%. 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

If all goes well then this is the last month that I have all the crowdlending platform in a big pile. I am not quite sure how I am going to shape this, because I also want to provide insight into how crowdlending in its entirety relates to crowdfunding and the stock market.

In addition, I also want to immediately look at the returns that I show, because you can look at this in different ways. Now I show the return rate that I have achieved since I started at a particular platform. So this is actually an average over the total time that I invest there. However, if the return has been rising or falling in recent months, this is not clearly visible. That is why I also want to show the return rate from month to month. But nobody is waiting for information overkill, so I have to think about this too. Tips and ideas are of course always welcome.

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

Last month, Bondora was able to reclaim a record amount of problem loans, which has exceeded one million euros for the first time. This is of course good news for investors.

However, the net return of investors fell again, by 0.2 percentage point to 8.4%. On January 1st this was still 8.8%, so this decline does not seem like good news for investors. For the time being, this is still above the 6.75% that investors can receive via Go & Grow, but I wonder whether this decline will continue. And of course what happens when it approaches 6.75%. For now, there is still a margin between what Bondora earns, and until then Bondora Go & Grow will probably continue to look like a super savings account where you can withdraw your money at any time. But this could well start to change by then.

My investments at Bondora returned € 19.09 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

 Brickstarter

At the beginning of this month I received the refund of the San Telmo project at Brickstarter. I invested € 546.82 in this last December and in March it was announced that this property was sold. The repayment shows that with this platform you are not only investing for the rental income but also to gain the gains of the increased value of the properties. I received € 598.36 and that is a nice profit of just over 50 euros! Mind you, this is on top of the € 5.68 in bonus and dividend received.. Quite nice earnings for just those 4 months.

My investments at Brickstarter returned € 54.01 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.7%.

 Bulkestate

Bulkstate sent an email that the project ‘Aleksandra Apartments’ was up for auction on April 18, but that there was very little interest and therefore the chances are very small that the proceeds would be enough to pay off enough debt.

Instead, Crowdestate appears to have expressed an interest in refinancing the loans. This is expected to be completed within 60 days, because the first paperwork has already been signed.

My investments at Bulkestate returned € 5.83 last month, and my average return rate is now 5.2%.

 Crowdestate

At Crowdestate there are two available projects, Aleksandra Apartments is not listed yet. The two projects will run for one year, and offer 11-11.5% interest. The LTV is between 43% and 62.5%. I now have 142 euros freely available, so I expect that my auto-invest will soon invest in this.

Crowdestate will expand their terrain to Slovakia and Portugal. They have not yet indicated when the first projects from these countries will be published, but I assume that we will not have to wait long for that.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 8.97 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.1%.

 Crowdestor

If you start paying attention, the information provided by Crowdestor is actually quite below par. For example, I did receive an email that a loan had been partially repaid and that EUR 11.51 had been deposited. But the repayment of a loan of EUR 2500 was not received, and you have to look for this yourself on the site.

There are talks with investors who want to acquire the borrowing company, there is also a chance that the loan will be refinanced. This should become clear in the next 1 to 2 months. This loan now covers half of my portfolio, so of course I would like to see that amount back soon.

The repayment for another large investment, of about 1000 euros, is likely to be paid in the first half of May. Whichever refund comes earlier, I plan to withdraw that right away. I see this as one of the platforms with a greater risk.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 3.04 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.0%.

 EstateGuru

A year ago I invested in the platform EstateGuru itself, when they started a crowdfunding campaign through Seedrs. To my surprise I received an email this month that a new investment round will be posted on Seedrs soon. There is not much information yet, so I do not know yet whether the price of existing shares will increase as a result, the dilution, etc. So I’ll have to wait and see.

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 22.94 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.1%.

 EvoEstate

EvoEstate has added the platform DebtProfilers. This platform specialized in debt recovery offers loans with collateral, but the collateral does not have to be real assets. They can also be ‘claim rights’, and this seems to me to be a bit more risky than real real estate as collateral. Something to take into account, especially if you set up auto-invest.

My investments at EvoEstate returned € 3.12 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.9%.

 Fast Invest

I am (again) starting to lose my patience with Fast Invest. I am still waiting for the payout that should have been made on January 7th. Last August I did a normal withdrawal, but since then this platform has apparently been difficult weather.

You will receive compensation if the payment takes too long, and it has now risen to 16 euros:

A bit ridiculous, of course, that they call a compensation for late payments a reward. I can not recommend this platform to anyone, maybe they will have everything back in order in a while but if you cannot withdraw your free money then something is really wrong.

My investments at Fast Invest returned € 18.24 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.9%.

 Flender

This month I made a (small) loss at Flender for the first time. Of the 190 euros that was overdue, € 37.94 has now been written off. Flender does not offer buyback guarantees, but historically there have been few problems. For me, my return has now fallen from 7.5% to 6.6%, so it’s actually not that bad. In total, my auto-invest invested € 4,935 here and this loss amounts to 0.77%.

Last month my account value at Flender decreased by € 20.83, and my average return rate is now 6.6%.

 Funding Circle NL

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 11.30 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 Grupeer

Grupeer still not communicating, the last update they sent via email was in November. The only positive thing is that the website is still operational. So stay away.

Last month my account value at Grupeer did not change, and my average return rate is now 8.1%.

 Iuvo

Iuvo has published the financial figures for 2020 of two of the affiliated lenders: iCredit Romania and Kviku that I operate in Russia. It is good thing when platforms provide transparency in this way, so investors have more insight into the originators and it may be easier to avoid countries and originators with risks that are (too) high.

Kviku reports a remarkable growth of 40% compared to 2019. That could mean that platofrm is doing very well, it could also mean that things are going so badly in Russia that many more people have to take out loans. And of course they still have to be paid back, and that chance will not have increased much with the crisis.

Last month my account value at Iuvo did not change, and my average return rate is now 8.8%.

 Lender & Spender

Lender & Spender has now been in existence for 5 years, and this Dutch platform has issued 4,600 loans in the Netherlands worth a total of 35 million euros.

In addition to offering loans through comparison sites and their own website, they are now expanding and started offering loans through product providers. You should think of solar panels, campers and caravans.

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 10.70 last month, and my average return rate is now 4.4%.

 Max Crowdfund

On April 3rd I was able to make my second investment through Max Crowdfund. Like my first investment, the ‘Commercial to Residential 10-Bed HMO Opportunity’ project offers 8% interest. Now I have invested 200 euros in it, so that I can provide a little more diversification. Unfortunately, you can only invest in multiples of 100 euros. There are also costs associated with investing, but this is only 0.1% and this time it only cost 20 cents.

Last month my account value at Max Crowdfund did not change, and my average return rate is now 0.0%.

 Mintos

Mintos sent an email that they were able to reclaim another 4 tons from Aforti, the lender who ran into payment problems at the beginning of last year. More than 7 tons have now been paid off of the original backlog of 2.2 million. I now have only 111 euros in Aforti loans, but Mintos continues to follow up, so I expect to get all this back.

After the investment round on Crowdcube, Mintos has expanded. In the first quarter of this year, they hired 17 people and now have a total of 150 employees. They expect to hire an additional 26 people this quarter.

This isn’t the only expansion planned, Mintos is looking to start offering ETFs. They have put the Mintos debit card on hold for the time being.

The Mintos loan portfolio is also growing again, the graph above shows a significant decline in 2020. The number of new investors is also growing considerably. In the first three months of this year, no fewer than 35,000 new investors were added. For the time being, they will therefore remain by far the largest platform in Europe: they control approximately 45% of the total market.

My investments at Mintos returned € 63.11 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.9%.

 NEO Finance

As of April 12, NEO Finance has implemented a change for the A+ loans: from now on they will be automatically repurchased in case of problems at 100% of the value. Normally you will receive an offer to sell them, where you have to decide within a few days. After that you can still sell them, but on less favorable terms. This still applies to the loans with a lower rating.

Of course this did not apply if you had chosen the Provision Fund, because then you are assured of repayment for a small fee.

It is important to adjust your auto-invest or make a new one for this, because it only applies to new A+ investments. It is worthwhile, of course, because the A+ loans have an interest rate between 5% and 8%. And the combination of such an interesting interest rate with the guarantee that 100% will be bought back in case of problems sounds like a very good deal.

My investments at NEO Finance returned € 0.68 last month, and my average return rate is now 1.8%.

 PeerBerry

PeerBerry has announced that the Aventus Group has written record figures in the first quarter. The amount of outstanding loans has increased from 60 million to 102 million euros in one year, and the interest received has increased by more than 30%.

April 22 was International Earth Day, and PeerBerry has reported that they have joined the Treenex initiative. This year they plan to plant 10,000 trees, and in the long term, we want to plant a tree for every investor on the platform.

My investments at PeerBerry returned € 9.57 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.6%.

 Reinvest24

This month at Reinvest24 I got my investment of over 45 euros in ‘Land plot with cash flow and signed buyout’ repaid, along with a profit growth of 5 euros. I also received about one euro in total in dividends for the rental income. Not bad considering I made this investment last December.

I now have 140 euros free and I will invest that in a new project today or tomorrow, there are now 4 available. The minimum investment amount is 100 euros, so I can only invest in one of them. There are also 1% costs associated with investing, which is not too bad because they recently halved this.

They also have a cashback promotion until May 12, in which you receive a bonus of 0.25%, in celebration of their three-year anniversary, which means that a part of those costs are also recouped.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € 23.71 last month, and my average return rate is now 5.2%.

 Robocash

Robocash has published the financial figures for 2020, after they have been audited by an accountant. The profit is 50% higher compared to 2019, and has reached 24 million dollars.

So the crisis does not seem to have had a big impact and it looks bright for Robocash, although of course we do not know what the impact will be in the somewhat longer term.

My investments at Robocash returned € 25.47 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.9%.

 TFG Crowd

Interestingly, TFG Crowd not only offers more investment opportunities with interest rates of 20% or more, but now also has investment plans with different risks and returns. Your investment is spread over different projects and categories, and it is immediately obvious that the interest are a lot lower compared to the others:

This is a bit like offering different funds, and you often see different interest rates that correspond to the underlying risk. A higher interest rate means that a higher percentage of the investment is invested in a category that has a higher risk, and lower interest rates mean that more is invested in safer investments (for example, the ratio between stocks and bonds).

Quite strange, if you look at the distribution used by TFG Crowd for these different investment plans:

The same distribution across risk categories, but different interest rates. I do not get it.

My investments at TFG Crowd returned € 8.48 last month, and my average return rate is now 17.3%.

 TWINO

In terms of turnover, TWINO is back at pre-covid level, the total of outstanding investments has exceeded 30 million euros for the first time. The largest market for TWINO is Russia, although Poland is also growing. Here they want to start offering credit lines soon.

Yesterday I had 1000 euros free and I withdrew this. I think 2,500 euros is a nice new limit for this platform and I am now close to that. Next month I will see if I can invest this withdrawn money in a Dutch or Belgian platform. Nice and close to home.

My investments at TWINO returned € 27.23 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.7%.

 Viainvest

Viainvest is expanding in Asia. A while ago they founded a Vietnamese lender together with TWINO (VAMO.vn), now they have also started in the Philippines (VAMO.ph). To raise money for this, a business loan has been added that you can invest in via Viainvest. This one offers 12% interest, plus an additional 2% interest at the end of the investment. It is possible to stop your investment in the meantime, although there is a notice period of 1, 3, or 6 months. If you choose 3 months you only get half of the extra 2% interest (so only 1% extra), and if you choose 1% you will not receive any extra interest.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 19.43 last month, and my average return rate is now 11.9%.

Crowdfunding

 CrowdAboutNow

CrowdAboutNow now offers 15 projects to invest in. 13 of these are loans, with interest rates around 3-4%. Eight projects are (also) a presale campaign. In addition, you pay in advance for products that they can then develop, which usually takes a while before you get them.

Normally I prefer a share campaign with these crowdfunding platforms. That entails a much higher risk, but if one of those companies becomes successful, the rewards are of course also appropriate. But maybe soon I will also try to invest in loans here.

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

 Crowdcube

At Crowdcube you can currently invest in 22 projects, but I don’t think one of them stands out yet. I will wait a while before making my second investment here.

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

 Seedrs

This month I made an investment again through Seedrs. MacRebur is a company that processes waste plastic to replace part of the bitumen in asphalt. The result is more durable roads, which also last longer. If this pays off, it is a nice green investment.

My investments at Seedrs returned € 572.99 last month, and my average return rate is now 11.6%.

Stock

At my exchange platforms, I have started cashing in on some winnings. I had very little free cash left and then there are not many options in case an interesting opportunity comes along. In addition, I have heard rumors that there could be another major ‘crash’ on the stock exchange soon. At the beginning of last year, there was of course the ‘covid crash’ that caused most stock prices to fall dramatically, but since then the stock market has recovered completely. Of course I was also able to take advantage of that by stepping in at that low moment.

But if you look at the developments this last year, the Dutch stock market index AEX shown below as an example, it seems as if it has been considerably overcompensated. The peak in February last year was around 630, and in March it had plummeted to just above 400. Currently, the price is above 700, and this is an all-time high:

I think that in the course of this year the real consequences of the crisis may well become clear. Now it is still a considerable exhaustion battle for many companies, and even though restrictions are slowly being lifted again, that does not mean that all companies that are still standing will continue to do so. A huge amount of money has also been pumped into the economy by all governments and that will also come to an end.

That is why I want to build up a larger cash reserve in the near future. If the prices plummet again, that is of course the ideal opportunity to get in cheaply and see everything grow so enormously again. It would be nice if I could repeat that trick again.

 BinckBank

After the takeover of BinckBank by Saxo bank, the platforms have increasingly merged. First, investors got a linked account at the Saxo bank for their free funds, and now the entire investor account has been transferred. Saxo has its own banking license, so your money is guaranteed by Government (up to 100,000 euros). Logging in is now done via saxoinvestor.nl, instead of the Binck website. From next month I will also implement this name change here on my blog.

My investments at BinckBank returned € 292.00 last month, and my average return rate is now 106.7%.

 DEGIRO

This month I sold almost half of my Six Flags shares at DEGIRO. I bought these last May at $ 20 each, and now I could sell them at a price of $ 48 each. A big difference, I have now made a total of 11 euros in profit on this and the shares that I have held are now completely free and pure profit. So I never have to worry about their price developments again.

I have done the same with half of my shares in CrowdStrike Holdings. I bought this one in June last year at a price of $ 96 and now sold it for $ 210 each. A total of 45 euros in profit, and 10 more shares that are completely free.

Last month my account value at DEGIRO decreased by € 602.70, and my average return rate is now 49.1%.

 ING

For my investments at ING I made an Excel to keep track of exactly how much I invested in the ‘economy’ ETFs and how much in the precious metals. For my 50-50 strategy, I want to invest the same amount in both categories, and rebalance this in terms of value once a year. Seeing that I have invested relatively less in the economy, I chose this month to buy 1 ETF: “iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF”. Now I have two ETFs in the economy: one that follows the Dutch AEX and one that follows the global economy. This seemed like a nice counterpart to my 2 precious metals ETFs.

Next month I think I will rebalance. Now that the AEX is so high, this seems a good time to do it for the first time.

It is currently difficult to invest in precious metals through ING. I can only sell my ETF in physical gold, while I can still buy my ETF in silver. But it is strange that this is only possible from my portfolio, because if you search among the ETFs you will no longer find ETFs in precious metals.

I have contacted ING, and their explanation is that they are still waiting for investor information from those funds. Until they have that information and can offer it, they cannot let investors buy those ETFs. They are intended to be available again, but it is not yet known when.

I propose that all investors call ING to inquire about this, hopefully that will speed things up a bit.

My investments at ING returned € 160.34 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.7%.

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.

When you found this update interesting, consider hitting the Like button. Feel free to share it with your friends using the buttons below. Below you can also find the link to my previous posts, where you can find my tips and results of the previous months.