It has been a while since I wrote any new posts, but this does not mean that I have slowed down on my financial aim. After this time, finally I have decided on my equity portfolio and I am happy to share with you my passive income ETF portfolio in this post. Please do not forget that this is based on what I as an EU citizen can access as an ETF portfolio.
Before we start, I like to tell you that:
- personally I do not recommend single stocks as it is easier to either invest in mutual funds or in index ETFs and have a much better diversification done by professionals
- personally I avoid bonds and prefer to use P2P Lending like Mintos and Crowdestate in order to diversify and invest in the debt market
- personally I prefer index ETFs that have a low management fee and a decent to high amount of assets under management (AUM)
- all my current investments are long term (buy and hold for 5+ or 10+ or even 20+ years if I will have to go that distance)
- all my current investments (except single stocks) are accumulating (dividend is reinvested in the stock/fund/ETF)
- as a European Union citizen I do not have access as a retail customer to most US funds and mainly aimed for UCITS index ETFs across Europe
Considering the above, I have adjusted my investment approach and shifted from a single stock investment into an ETF portfolio with a somewhat decent diversification. Before I show you my current target portfolio split and what I am doing in order to reach it, I will list below my single stock investments.
Contents
Venture capitalist investment (VC)
I only have one investment which I can flag as a VC and it is the biggest single stock position I have so far. The company is Etergo and I bought 13,350 shares at 0.33 EUR cents.
I am fully aware that there is no dividend for now, that I cannot easily sell this stock and that this is the highest risk I have taken on a single investment. I accept this because I like the profile and portfolio of the company. If things go good, then they might actually be the Tesla of scooters.
At this point in time, I have stopped any other VC investments.
See you in 20 years on this one 🙂
Single stock investment
I bought these stocks because I actually wanted to own a piece of these companies. When I bought them, these stocks were considered as undervalued (either by me or forums/analysts which I read during my research).
What I recommend for any of you is to do the research and to find someone to teach you or something from which you can learn. The aim is to make your own mind and take your own decision. Do not let others invest on your behalf and take their fees. If you do not have time to research individual stocks and do not have the know how, then look into mutual funds or index ETFs as the fund managers will pick the stocks.
With the exception of my VOD (Vodafone) stock which is in GBP I intend to keep all my single stocks and to stop investing in them. My aim for VOD is to sell it once it reached 160 so I make a slight profit after deducting the fees for the buy and sell orders. Until then, I will wait. You can check my portfolio to see if I sold it by now.
As of 28th of July 2019 my single stocks are:
| Symbol | Position | Currency | Market Value |
| AAPL | 10 | USD | 2,078 |
| ATVI | 20 | USD | 962 |
| BMW | 20 | EUR | 1,375 |
| CSSPX | 1 | USD | 298 |
| DPW | 30 | EUR | 909 |
| MEUD | 5 | EUR | 794 |
| VOD | 210 | GBP | 305 |
| Etergo | 13,350 | EUR | 5,340 |
| WSML | 162 | USD | 836 |
Cash positions
All my cash positions (including my emergency fund) are either in EUR or USD. Although I do not live in an European country that uses EURO, this currency is more stable than the one I use at home.
My current cash split is simple and split between my Bank and Interactive Brokers for the opportunity funds.
| Other | Target | Value | % p.a. | Currency |
| Emergency | 35,000 | 35,000 | 0% | EURO |
| Opportunity | 10,000 | 5,000 | 0% | EURO |
| Opportunity | 10,000 | 5,000 | 0% | USD |
The opportunity fund is just me keeping my cash on hand to quire more equity if the price is right (undervalued).
ETF investments
As an European Union citizen I cannot easily access US funds and some US ETFs due to UCITS. Please do not worry, this does not mean that you cannot invest, but this means that you will go into a more index ETF direction as shown in my passive income ETF portfolio. For me this was the direction I wanted to go in initially, but I also wanted to complement it with some mutual funds.
First of all it is important for you to understand what is an index and how to approach index investing. I urge you to always do the research prior to proceeding with any investments. Especially prior to proceeding with some investments that you plan for the long term and on which you base your pension or early retirement.
For me the approach is simple:
- low fees (blended fee over my split is 0.204%)
- accumulating (dividends are reinvested in the ETF)
- decent size of AUM (smallest is 289 and highest is 35,283 million under management with an average of 6,700 million across them)
- all track an index (either replicated or adjusted by the fund management team)
- currency split between EUR and USD
- equity split between Large, Mid and Small capitalization
- decent annualized return for the last 10 years and since inception (blended average of ETFs has 14.75% over last 10 years and 12.39% since inception and for the blended average of the indexes has 11.63% for last 10 years and 8.38% since inception)
Please keep in mind that all above statistics are for this point in time based on the research I did. Prior to making any investment I urge you to do your own research. There is no guarantee that historical events and trends will continue in the same manner.
It is now time to list the split, ETFs and some simple stats about them for my EU citizen ETF portfolio. You can also check my monthly statistics and passive income goals. Hopefully they will inspire you to start your financial independence journey.
| Asset Allocation | 20% |
| Ticker | IWDA |
| Exchange | Euronext |
| Name | iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF |
| Index tracked | MSCI World |
| Currency | EUR |
| AuM (M) | 20028 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.2 |
| Anualized Return | |
| Last 3y | 11.86 |
| Last 5y | 6.74 |
| Last 10y | – |
| Since Inception | 9.18 |
| Asset Allocation | 5% | 10% |
| Ticker | TNOW | EQQQ |
| Exchange | Borsa Italiana | Borsa Italiana |
| Name | Lyxor MSCI World Information Technology TR UCITS ETF – Acc (EUR) | Invesco EQQQ NASDAQ-100 UCITS ETF (EUR) |
| Index tracked | MSCI Daily TR World Net Information Technology USD | NASDAQ-100 |
| Currency | EUR | EUR |
| AuM (M) | 289 | 2264 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Anualized Return | ||
| Last 3y | 23.1 | 22.94 |
| Last 5y | 21.13 | 23.51 |
| Last 10y | – | 21.84 |
| Since Inception | 18.3 | 38.64 |
| Asset Allocation | 10% | 5% |
| Ticker | CSSPX | SPY4 |
| Exchange | London Stock Exchange | Deutsche Boerse |
| Name | iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF | SPDR S&P 400 US Mid Cap UCITS ETF |
| Index tracked | Standard & Poor’s 500 | Standard & Poor’s MidCap 400 |
| Currency | USD | EUR |
| AuM (M) | 35283 | 908 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.07 | 0.3 |
| Anualized Return | ||
| Last 3y | 13.79 | 10.26 |
| Last 5y | 10.3 | 7.39 |
| Last 10y | – | – |
| Since Inception | 13.09 | 11.44 |
| Asset Allocation | 10% | 5% |
| Ticker | MEUD | EXS3 |
| Exchange | Euronext | Deutsche Boerse |
| Name | Lyxor Core STOXX Europe 600 (DR) – UCITS ETF Acc | iShares MDAX® UCITS ETF (DE) |
| Index tracked | STOXX Europe 600 | MDAX |
| Currency | EUR | EUR |
| AuM (M) | 1276 | 1620 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.07 | 0.51 |
| Anualized Return | ||
| Last 3y | 7.96 | 8.08 |
| Last 5y | 5.71 | 8.08 |
| Last 10y | – | 15.46 |
| Since Inception | 5.71 | 9.37 |
| Asset Allocation | 5% | 5% |
| Ticker | CSEMUS | WSML |
| Exchange | SIX Swiss Exchange | London Stock Exchange |
| Name | iShares MSCI EMU Small Cap UCITS ETF | iShares MSCI World Small Cap UCITS ETF |
| Index tracked | MSCI EMU Small Cap | MSCI World Small Cap Index |
| Currency | EUR | USD |
| AuM (M) | 713 | 865 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.58 | 0.35 |
| Anualized Return | ||
| Last 3y | 10.58 | – |
| Last 5y | 8.4 | – |
| Last 10y | – | – |
| Since Inception | 11.73 | 0.84 |
| Asset Allocation | 10% | 10% |
| Ticker | MVOL | XRSU |
| Exchange | London Stock Exchange | London Stock Exchange |
| Name | iShares Edge MSCI World Minimum Volatility UCITS ETF | SPDR Russell 2000 US Small Cap UCITS ETF |
| Index tracked | MSCI World Minimum Volatility | Russell 2000 |
| Currency | USD | USD |
| AuM (M) | 4050 | 513 |
| Expense Ratio | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Anualized Return | ||
| Last 3y | 8.65 | 11.75 |
| Last 5y | 9.34 | – |
| Last 10y | – | – |
| Since Inception | 10.8 | 6.73 |
All that is left now is to proceed with the investments according with my plan for this year. You can find all my updates in my blog and I always welcome you yo check my portfolio and my monthly financial statistics.