June 2019 Report

Because the financial year has just ended in Australia, this report has more estimated figures than normal. June was another positive month with big wins in Bitcoin and gold. In June the Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6930 to USD 0.7012. The MSCI World Index rose 6.59% and the S&P 500 7.05%. The ASX 200 rose 3.80%. All these are total returns including dividends. We gained 1.39% in Australian Dollar terms and 2.59% in US Dollar terms. The target portfolio gained 2.36% in Australian Dollar terms and the HFRI hedge fund index gained 2.60% in US Dollar terms. So, we under-performed all benchmarks apart from HFRI. On the other hand, all months since the end of November have had positive returns in Australian Dollar terms:


Here is a report on the performance of investments by asset class (futures includes managed futures and trading):

Gold was the best performing asset class gaining 12%. The worst asset class was Australian small cap, losing 4%. The largest contributions to the rate of return came from futures followed by bonds. The Australian Dollar return is lower than the 2.02% reported here because of foreign currency losses due to the rise in the Australian Dollar over the month.

Things that worked very well this month:

• Trading Bitcoin. Trading profits for this month were greater than for all of 2018. 
• Gold.

What really didn't work:

• Tribeca Global Resources and Cadence Capital. These are now two of my three worst investments in dollar terms. Both of these are trading a lot below NAV. Tribeca is actually doing fine but investors have sold it perhaps because of a misleading report from Morningstar.

Trading income was USD 21,451 for the month, which is three times larger than any previous monthly total. The rate of return on cash in trading accounts was 13.88%.

We moved towards our new long-run asset allocation * as we began to shift out of bonds and moved the first money that orginally came from Chocolateland into our Australian bank account. Gold futures, and cash all increased. As predicted, last month was "peak bonds".

On a regular basis, we also invest AUD 2k monthly in a set of managed funds, and there are also retirement contributions. Then there are distributions from funds and dividends. Other moves this month:

• USD 130k of corporate bonds matured (Cigna) or we sold them after early redemptions were announced (CNO, HCA) and we bought USD 103k of USD bonds (Genworth, Goodyear, Xerox, and Avon Products). We also sold 2,000 CBAPH Commonwealth Bank hybrid securities.
• We traded successfully, as discussed above.
• I bought 5,000 shares of the IAU gold ETF. 
• We bought 66,126 shares in Domacom (DCL.AX), a startup company that is enabling fractional ownership of residential property.
• I bought another 4,734 shares in Oceania Capital.

* Total leverage includes borrowing inside leveraged (geared) mutual (managed) funds. The allocation is according to total assets including the true exposure in leveraged funds. We currently don't have any leveraged funds.