May 2026 Report

International stock markets gained, but the Australian market lagged, presumably in response to the tax changes. The Australian Dollar was little changed moving from USD 0.7179 to USD 0.7185. Gold fell in USD terms. Here is the performance of our benchmarks (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 5.21%

S&P 500: 5.26%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index (forecast): 1.50%

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 1.34%

Target Portfolio (forecast, depends on HFRI): 2.56%

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 2.92%

We underperformed all our benchmarks by a lot. In Australian Dollar terms we gained 0.44% and in US Dollar terms we gained 0.53%. This barely covers inflation. The SMSF also underperformed gaining 0.43% while Unisuper gained 2.26% and PSS(AP) 2.31%.

Here is a report on the performance of investments by asset class:

The asset class returns are in currency neutral terms as the rate of return on gross assets and do not include investment expenses such as margin interest, and so the total differs from the Australian Dollar returns on net assets mentioned above. Gold, futures, and private equity lost money but all other asset classes gained. Hedge funds were the best performer and greatest contributor. 

Why did we underperform the target portfolio? The most important reason is that we had a -0.15% contribution from private equity while the target benchmark had a 1.84% contribution. If the target portfolio had lost 0.15% on private equity instead, it would have returned only 0.57% overall. As we will see below, 3i was a major detractor, and we just don't have consistent wins on our venture portfolio yet. This is the J-curve curse. If and when we do have consistent returns–returns are actually positive already– they'll report with a long time lag too.  

Things that worked well this month:

• Six investments gained AUD 10k or more: Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX, 44k), Unisuper (18k), PSS(AP) (14k), Pengana Private Equity (PE1.AX, 13k), Acadian Global Equity Long-Short (13k), and Regal Partners (RPL.AX, 10k). Our industry/public sector super funds were nice diversifiers this month.

What really didn't work:

• Three investments lost AUD 10k or more: L1 Global Long-Short (GLS.AX, 27k), 3i (III.L, 22k), gold (14k).

Our distance from our target allocation very slightly narrowed. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

Almost 70% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity and credit, gold, and futures. A lot of these are listed investments or investments with daily liquidity, so our portfolio is not as illiquid as you might think.

Moominmama receives employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We also make monthly concessional contributions to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. There will still be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II and III. I am receiving monthly pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF totalling AUD 5,150 per month. I got a bit more active in the market, making the following investment and trade moves this month:

• We received a large value of distributions this month. AUD 20k from URF.AX, AUD 24k from Aura VF2, 3k from Aura VF1, and more than AUD 10k including the franking credit from WAM Capital. The first of these largely went to paying our SMSF's tax bill of AUD 16k after the annual accounts were finalized. The Aura payments were a welcome boost to our offset account, which is currently at just below AUD 300k:

• I made three investments (USD 2k each) in startups on Angellist. These were my first investments that were not with the Unpopular Ventures syndicate. Two of them are in the medical/health field.
• I sold 20k shares of Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX) around the recent price peak. This reduced our margin loan back towards the level I fixed at a constant interest rate.
• I sold 2k shares of the ASX 200 ETF, IOZ.AX. I think I was just getting bored of this! I used the money to:
• Buy 1,000 shares of ZIM again and 10k shares of Regal Partners (RPL.AX). ZIM has fallen since I sold and continued to fall since I rebought... There seems to be a lot of resistance in the government to approve the takeover by Hapag-Lloyd. On the other hand, businessman Haim Sakal has made a higher bid for the firm, though it doesn't seem to being taken very seriously. Regal just seems very cheap given the growth the firm is achieving. These helped us rebalancing as well.
• I also sold 10k shares of Pengana Private Equity (PE1.AX) as the price now seems to reflect the NAV including the expected value of SpaceX at its upcoming IPO. I bought 5k shares of Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX) instead as it is trading below NAV.

Here are the income and spending accounts * for this month:

I just realised that I have been treating tax on employer superannuation contributions and tax on SMSF contributions asymmetrically and tax on superannuation earnings asymmetrically with tax on non-superannuation investment returns. I have been deducting contributions tax from contributions for employer super inside the "other income" category but all the tax paid on the SMSF, which includes contributions tax, has been relegated to "tax credit". Similarly, all tax paid on non-super investment returns has been in "Other income" but all tax paid on superannuation earnings is in "tax credit".

I think the solution is to deduct all the tax actually paid by the SMSF from other income, while leaving the tax credits received by the SMSF in "tax credit" obviously, but also all the imputed tax on employer super investment earnings will stay in tax credit because we never actually receive that money. The accounts above employ this new approach.

Other income includes Moominmama's salary and employer superannuation contributions but also the tax paid by the SMSF, which was AUD 16k this month.. It was a low spending month at AUD 6k, which is about the same as we spent in March. This number does not include our mortgage payments, which are regarded here as saving and investment costs. Dissaving amounted to AUD 18k, mainly because of the SMSF tax. This is still within the 4% rule limit of AUD 23k. We gained AUD 30k investing, all of which was in retirement accounts. We received a dividend from WAM Capital in the SMSF with associated franking credits this month. We also paid a lot of tax to the ATO from the SMSF. As a result of all this, net worth rose by AUD 6k to AUD 8.231 million. This is net worth is lower than that reported last month due to a fall in the estimated value of our house, where I use the same value for all months of the year.

* Results are shown separately for retirement and non-retirement accounts as well as housing, which nowadays doesn't have much activity. The grey shaded rows are additional notes. Total investment income is split into investment income before exchange rate moves and the contribution of exchange rates. Other income is non-investment income including salaries, employer superannuation contributions, net tax returns minus superannuation contribution tax and all SMSF tax payments to the ATO. Investment income is shown pre-tax. Tax credits include franking credits on Australian Dividends etc. and imputed tax on industry superannuation returns. These are taken away from investment income to get changes in actual net worth. Inheritances include gifts from relatives. Saving is from non-investment income, transfers, and inheritances.