July 2026 Report

The Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6909 to USD 0.7024. So, our Australian Dollar returns are a lot lower than USD returns. World stockmarkets were flat, while the Australian market rose.

Here is the performance of our benchmarks (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 0.10%

S&P 500: -0.06%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index (forecast): 0.08%

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 2.26%

Target Portfolio (forecast, depends on HFRI): -0.11%

Australian 60/40 benchmark: -0.23%

In Australian Dollar terms we gained 0.60% and in US Dollar terms 2.28%. We outperformed all benchmarks apart from the ASX200. The target portfolio has more or less flatlined since September last year as the Australian Dollar rose and more recently gold fell:

I've been through a bit of excess volatility, peaking in January. Until this month the ASX200 has also been going sideways:

You'll notice that even the S&P 500 doesn't look as spectacular in the last couple of years when converted to Australian Dollars! The SMSF returned -0.36%, beating Unisupe, which lost 0.59%. But PSS)AP) was up 0.63%. Here is a report on the performance of investments by asset class:

The asset class returns are in currency neutral terms and gross asset terms 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. This month was the reverse of last month: private equity and futures led the way. Rest of world stocks had the worst rate of return and hedge funds detracted the most.

Things that worked well this month:

• 3i (III.L) and Australian Dollar futures gained AUD 10k or more, with the former gaining AUD 33k and the latter 10k.

What really didn't work:

• Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX) lost AUD 26k.

Our distance from our target allocation increased very slightly. 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. 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, which going forward will total AUD 6,750 per month. I was very busy investing this month, making the following moves:

• I invested a total of USD 6,000 in four new startups on Angellist. They cover the defence, biotech, education, and real estate sectors.
• I bought a total of 7,500 shares in the Monochrome Bitcoin ETF (IBT.AX). That amounts to 0.75 bitcoins. I also bought 5,000 shares of ProCap Financial (BRR), which is mostly a bitcoin treasury company.
• I sold 5,000 shares of Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX), 11k shares of Hearts and Minds (HM1.AX), and 2,500 shares of Treasury Wine Estates (TWE.AX)–the money to buy bitcoin has to come from somewhere.
• I bought another 5,000 shares of Regal Partners (RPL.AX). Still don't understand why this seems so undervalued.
• I bought another 500 shares of the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP).
• I sold 6,000 shares of the gold ETF PMGOLD.AX as part of the "restructure" as well as buying 30k shares of the L1 Gold Fund (LGF.AX) and opening a gold futures position in the SMSF and closing the AUD futures position in the SMSF. We still have AUD futures in our personal IBKR accounts.
• I bought 1.25m shares of the US Residential Fund (URF.AX) using the margin freed up by the restructure.
• I sold all our position (110k shares) in WAM Capital (WAM.AX) and replaced it with WAM Active (WAA.AX, 150k shares).
• Finally, I started selling covered calls on our Treasury Wines position (TWE.AX). 

Here are the income and spending accounts * for this month ($ is Australian Dollar):

TABLE FROM MONTHLY ACCOUNTS

Other income includes Moominmama's salary and net employer superannuation contributions but also the tax paid by the SMSF. Spending was high this month–AUD 29k, the third highest ever in nominal terms–due to paying school fees, a big dollop of depreciation recorded on our old and new cars, and the stamp duty and insurance on buying the new car. I opted to again insure our car rather than just insure against damaging other cars.  This number does not include our mortgage payments, which are regarded here as saving and investment costs and saving. Dissaving amounted to $23k, which is at the 4% rule limit of AUD 23k. We gained $41k investing. There was only $645 this month in tax credits and implicit tax on our employer super, which are included in pretax investment returns but have to be deducted to get to the change in net worth. But there was a big transfer to superannuation as I carried out the "restructure". Net of my pension payments it was around AUD 90k. As a result of all this, net worth rose by AUD 17k to AUD 8.261 million.

* 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. Current other income is non-investment income including salaries and net income tax returns, while on the retirement side it includes employer superannuation contributions 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. in non-retirement accounts and the SMSF 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 not investment income.