December 2021: Happy New Year!

Of course I have to start by wishing you all the best in this new year. I hope it will be happier, healthier, and more fun for everyone.

The past year has been one to both remember and forget, but the new year will also be a challenge. Hopefully we will have the lockdowns behind us soon, a substantially lower pressure on the healthcare system, and a reopening of all shops and businesses so they can recover.

Last month my first investment via crowdfunding platform Seedrs was ended: it was sold at a loss. But that’s a calculated risk with this kind of risky investments. You can read more details below.

Portfolio overview December 2021

Last month my portfolio increased by € 4,855.75 and my average rate of return over all platforms is 12.5%. 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

I have grouped by P2P platforms into two groups, one containing all platforms based in Western Europe and one containing all platforms based in Eastern Europe. In the table below you can see the balance between them.

Crowdlending (west)

In the table and paragraphs below you can see which platforms make up my “Western Europe group”.

 Flender

Flender remains a valuable addition to my P2P portfolio. Yields are very stable, just above 7%. And that is of course very nice for a Western European platform, it is active in Ireland. The platform does not offer a buyback guarantee but even in these times this is not really necessary. The auto-invest automatically spreads your investments over many loans, so the risk is quite low. At the moment 38 euros in investments have been written off, while I have received almost 500 euros in interest.

My investments at Flender returned € 21.72 last month, and my average return rate is now 7.2%.

 Funding Circle NL

Five of my seven investments via Funding Circle NL have now been repaid, and the outstanding balance is just over 800 euros. This continues to get lower and lower because private individuals can no longer invest here. However, this platform will remain in my portfolio for a while because the two remaining investments will only be fully repaid in 21 months.

My investments at Funding Circle NL returned € 5.73 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.7%.

 Lender & Spender

At Lender & Spender your money is automatically invested and you cannot choose. The return is slightly lower at just 4%, but that is at least enough to compensate for inflation a bit. The outstanding amount of 3499 euros is automatically spread over 3486 loans, so you can calculate that a wrong loan has little effect on your return.

2021 was a successful year for Lender &Spender: they have provided more than 3400 loans, with a total value of more than 30 million euros. That is more than all previous years combined.

My investments at Lender & Spender returned € 10.60 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.8%.

 Max Crowdfund

According to my dashboard at Max Crowdfund, the return on my ongoing investments is now 7.4%. I started here at the beginning of this year, and the return I calculate also includes the amount that was not invested in the first months. That return continues to rise slowly every month, and the interest payments come in very regularly.

The minimum investment amount here is 100 euros, so it is not really a platform that is optimal for small investors. But so far I am satisfied with it.

My investments at Max Crowdfund returned € 6.16 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.8%.

Crowdlending (east)

In the table and paragraphs below you can see which platforms make up my “Eastern Europe group”.

 Bondora

The average return on all investments at Bondora fell again this month very slightly, to 7.6%. That is still almost a percentage point above the maximum that Bondora Go&Grow offers (max 6.75%), for the time being I do not yet see that the daily interest paid on this “type of savings account” is decreasing. It will take a while to get to that point I think.

My investments at Bondora returned € 19.94 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.8%.

 Brickstarter

No news about Brickstarter, the return here remains fairly low at around 5%. This is also mainly due to the fact that tourism has been hit hard at this time, and this platform mainly relies on buying and renting out holiday apartments (and then selling them for a profit).

My investments at Brickstarter returned € 4.80 last month, and my average return rate is now 5.0%.

 Bulkestate

Kudos to Bulkestate, they have adapted the website and now immediately show the value of your account. Now you no longer have to add up all kinds of values yourself. Less kudos however because in my opinion the information provisioning is still not top notch. Updates about the various projects are not emailed but posted in a forum. There you have to find them among comments and questions from other investors, the information is not available through the investments or projects page. Of course it is great that they have a forum where there is interaction with both the platform and between investors, but that should be additional.

Last month my account value at Bulkestate decreased by € 132.65, and my average return rate is now 5.0%.

 Crowdestate

Over the past year, my yield at Crowdestate has been slowly declining. It’s still close to 9%, so pretty high, but there are some problem projects. The collateral for Tammelehe 4 and Tammehele 6 has been sold through an auction, so hopefully we as investors will see some of it soon.

My investments at Crowdestate returned € 3.32 last month, and my average return rate is now 8.9%.

 Crowdestor

In November I withdrew quite a bit from Crowdestor, making my current outstanding money pure profit. Next month I’m going to decide whether I’m going to invest the released amounts in Flex here, or skim off this profit (Flex is kind of the Crowdestor variant of Bondora Go&Grow). I have put this platform in the ‘high risk’ category for myself.

My investments at Crowdestor returned € 17.04 last month, and my average return rate is now 13.4%.

 EstateGuru

My investments at EstateGuru returned € 23.64 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.0%.

 EvoEstate

Two projects have been repaid at EvoEstate this month. A part is immediately invested again by the auto-invest, and 71 euros await the next interest payments to reach the minimum amount of 100 euros for investments.

My return here is slightly above 5 percent, not very high compared to other platforms, but you can spread your investments here over several other platforms. So you only need 1 account and website to invest via multiple crowdlending platforms. I did set the auto-invest in such a way that it only invests in projects with one of the two highest ratings, and only if there is a first-class mortgage as collateral.

My investments at EvoEstate returned € 9.80 last month, and my average return rate is now 5.2%.

 Fast Invest

Fast Invest has not paid out the withdrawals for a year, and they are blaiming the borrowing companies. But you can also not withdraw the free amount, while this should always be available. Therefore: stay far away from this platform, this is just not right.

Last month my account value at Fast Invest did not change, and my average return rate is now 11.9%.

 Grupeer

Grupeer’s website remains active, but nothing else happens and investors still can’t access their money. Don’t even come close as an investor.

Last month my account value at Grupeer did not change, and my average return rate is now 6.3%.

 Iuvo

Last month my account value at Iuvo did not change, and my average return rate is now 7.5%.

 Mintos

Mintos updates the ratings of the originators every quarter, so it’s time to check the auto-invest again. If the rating of an originator drops it is not automatically disabled in your auto-invest, so you have to do that yourself.

My return at Mintos has been quite stable for quite some time, around 10.5%. I have 3 accounts here: a Euro account, a RUB account (in Russian Rubles), and a KZT account (in Kazakh Tenges). The latter two have a return in Euros of about 7.5%, which is of course not bad. If you look at the performance in the respective currency itself, it looks a lot better: my RUB account has a return of 10.9% and my KZT account even a return of 15.5%. The lower return in Euros is because I convert the value every month at the current rates, and those currencies have fallen quite a bit. As long as I don’t withdraw anything, I won’t be bothered by those exchange rates.

My investments at Mintos returned € 30.05 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.3%.

 NEO Finance

My return at NEO Finance has been taking quite a while to climb, but has now climbed above 3% for the first time. This is partly because you can opt for a guarantee via the Provision Fund when making investments, although you do have to pay costs for this at the start. Ultimately, I think the returns will continue to rise here for a long time to come, and it also feels safer because of their EMI license and this genuine warranty. With many other platforms, a buyback guarantee is mainly a promise.

My investments at NEO Finance returned € 17.11 last month, and my average return rate is now 3.1%.

 PeerBerry

PeerBerry is one of the few platforms with returns above 10% that I have a good feeling about. They have also more than doubled in size in the past year so apparently there are many investors who share this view with me.

My investments at PeerBerry returned € 9.40 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.4%.

 Reinvest24

Also at Reinvest24 my return continues to rise very slowly. The platform has somewhat the same approach as Brickstarter, buying properties for rental income and value increases. Recently, however, they also have high-interest business loans without real estate as collateral. The owners of the company and the company itself are the collateral, but I think that is far too risky. If a company cannot repay a loan, the shares in that company are not worth much anymore. So it is a matter of choosing well here in which you invest.

My investments at Reinvest24 returned € 13.32 last month, and my average return rate is now 6.3%.

 Robocash

Robocash has had a good year, attracting over 9,000 new investors. More than 145 million euros has been invested.

This is one of the platforms where everything goes automatically and you don’t have to worry about it, the incoming amounts fluctuate considerably per month but the return consistently remains slightly above 12%.

My investments at Robocash returned € 22.08 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.7%.

 TFG Crowd

One by one the projects at TFG Crowd fail and go bankrupt. The platform itself does not make much of an effort to recover the funds from investors. In the notifications around SanSa GmbH and HOGA Real Estate GmbH it says explicitly that all they do is forward messages and payments when they receive them. Even worse I find that you only see these messages when you log in, no emails are sent about it.

It was also expected, for more than a year I have been writing about the worrying developments and strange and unreliable details of the projects. Fortunately, I did receive a lot of interest in the first year (yes, just one of those things that later started ringing red flags and waving alarm bells. Or something like that.). As a result, I was able to transfer my entire deposits in parts to my own account, and now ‘only’ profit is lost.

Last month my account value at TFG Crowd did not change, and my average return rate is now 14.2%.

 TWINO

TWINO remains very stable, the return here has been exactly 9.7% for more than a year. This year I have withdrawn money a few times and that is always processed quickly.

Getting the IBF license in August was also very good news for investors. This means that the platform has been thoroughly vetted and should offer good protection and transparency for investors.

My investments at TWINO returned € 15.87 last month, and my average return rate is now 9.7%.

 Viainvest

Viainvest has switched banks to Vialet. Every now and then a platform switches banks, but if that happens regularly that is a red flag. That is not the case at Viainvest. In this case it is very logical because the Vialet bank is part of the same business group (VIA SMS Group). Now that they have an IBF (Investment Brokerage Firm) license all kinds of changes are being made, and I think this will only benefit investors.

My investments at Viainvest returned € 25.96 last month, and my average return rate is now 12.0%.

Crowdfunding

 CrowdAboutNow

2021 was a successful year for CrowdAboutNow. The number of campaigns rose to 140, which is 50 more than the year before. In total, 13,523 investors invested just over 20 million euros in 2021. They have also grown themselves: the team now consists of 15 employees and has moved to larger premises.

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

 Crowdcube

Last month my account value at Crowdcube did not change, and my average return rate is now 0.1%.

 Seedrs

This month Mimetis was sold to Nobel Biocare. At the end of 2018, I had bought shares in this company through Seedrs, the second of 11 investments here now.

The money was running out at Mimetis, so the sale was more of an emergency measure to avoid losing the entire investment. Now 60% of the original investment has been saved. Now I have a little more than 850 euros free on the platform, so next month I have to think about whether I’m going to withdraw that or whether I’m going to make a small investment.

Buying yourself into a start-up company is of course extremely risky, so I’m not surprised that the first exit here results in a loss. That’s why I still have about 10 investments going on here. A few successes are in principle enough to compensate for other losses, although there is of course also the chance that all investments will end in a loss.

The news that the price of my shares in Wegaw has risen from 37 cents to 52 cents is of course a lot nicer. That is a 40% increase in value. This compensates for the loss of Mimetis, although it is still theoretical until it can actually be cashed in.

The shares of Seedrs itself have also been valued higher this month, so all in all I am not dissatisfied this month.

My investments at Seedrs returned € 737.56 last month, and my average return rate is now 10.9%.

Stock

 DEGIRO

This month I took the plunge and decided to focus my investment strategy at DEGIRO on dividends. So invest in ETFs and stocks that pay a decent dividend.

That’s why I sold a lot of stocks, such as Netflix (EUR 380 profit), Six Flags (EUR 1491 profit), and DexCom (EUR 256 profit). In addition, I also sold my remaining shares in Arista Networks, and the proceeds of this of 2550 euros were pure profit: I had already sold a part before and thus recouped the entire purchase value.

There is a difference between so-called growth stocks and dividend stocks. Growth stocks are from companies that pay little or no dividend, but invest the profits mainly in the growth of the company. In the case of dividend shares, the profit or part thereof is distributed to the shareholders. As a result, there is less to invest in the company’s growth, and so the prices of those companies will generally increase less quickly.

So it is a bit of a choice for investors to go for a return based on the rise in share prices, or for a return that is more based on regular dividend payments. Of course, getting a return is not a guarantee, every company looks quarter to quarter whether a dividend is paid, and if so how much.

In addition to the dividend yield, there is another reason why I choose this: because the companies are less focused on growth, prices generally rise less, but the reverse is also the case. When the market and prices fall, the prices of the dividend shares usually fall a lot less. Of course it continues to invest with risks, but my feeling tells me that this is more stable and with less chance of losses. And sometimes you have to choose less losses instead of more profits.

My investments at DEGIRO returned € 27.52 last month, and my average return rate is now 33.0%.

 ING

At ING I deposited another 100 euros, for my 50-50 strategy in the economy and precious metals. I invest 50 euros every month in both categories, but due to exchange rate differences, the ratio is now 51.8%-48.2%. Soon I will add a page with the different investment strategies and how I apply them per account/broker.

Yesterday I also received €11.30 in dividend for the iShares AEX UCITS ETF. That provides a nice extra return.

My investments at ING returned € 115.40 last month, and my average return rate is now 11.6%.

 Saxo Bank

That leaves Saxo Bank, my stock exchange account without a particular strategy. Or it’s more of the ‘other’ category. This month I am reaping the benefits of that again, because the price of the LOIL oil ETF is rising again after a significant drop in November.

My investments at Saxo Bank returned € 3,851.38 last month, and my average return rate is now 84.5%.

Blog traffic

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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Disclaimer: I share my experiences on this site, and blog about my results and things I encounter. It is for informational purposes only and cannot be considered professional advice. Investments bring risk and you should never invest funds that you are not willing to lose. I think my site is a nice start, but do your own research and make sure you understand the risks before you start to invest yourself. You can read more about this here.