Portfolio performance report Q1 2021

My investments as of April 1st 2021

Composition

My portfolio remains unchanged: a mix of developed equities, emerging markets equities and global government bonds that are hedged to the Euro.

Growth of the portfolio

A strong quarter with a 11% increase of the net value of my portfolio. I invested only €1,380 but saw gains of €4,471.

My portfolio is currently valued at €46,171, with total gains of €9,342 or 26.0%. Since the start of my investment journey in 2018, my portfolio has had a compound annual growth rate of 8.8%.

Performance per asset

Both equities in developed markets and emerging markets have continued to rise. On the other hand, the value of the bonds have further reduced, in line with the decrease in interest rates.

Why I’ll move my portfolio over to Curvo

For the past two years, me and my co-founder Thomas have been working on getting Curvo off the ground. As pensions are tightened, our generation and the upcoming ones are facing a scary financial future and therefore looking for better ways to save their money.

We started Curvo because we saw that there is an important gap to be filled. Traditional banks aren’t providing adequate options to address our generation, and the only viable alternative it to invest yourself. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably aware that this is not easy! You have to define your portfolio, find a broker, figure how taxes work, make your monthly investments, learn how to rebalance… Curvo exists to take these complexities away and combine the best of both worlds.

The good news is that we’ve almost done it! We’re going to launch in the weeks to come. And as soon as we have, I’m going to move my portfolio over to Curvo. Why would I do that, given that I have some experience managing my own investments?

• Investments fully on auto-pilot. Right now, I have a direct debit set up that automatically sends €200 every month from my bank account to my Lynx account. But I still have to manually make the investments. This was fun at the start, when investing was all new to me. It was exciting to open a spreadsheet and calculate how many shares of each fund I can buy so that it matches my allocation yet minimizes the cash left on the account. But by now, the novelty has worn off and it has become an annoying chore. With Curvo, I’ll set up a direct debit and this money will automatically be invested for me according to my Curvo portfolio. I won’t have to do anything!
• No need to combine investments. When investing regularly, there’s a trade-off between the frequency at which you can invest and the cost of trading. Also, some ETFs trade at such a high price that sometimes you can’t even buy a single share with your monthly contribution. The cool thing with Curvo is that it handles fractional shares. So it doesn’t matter if I contribute €200 monthly but a share costs €300. My full €200 will be invested and there will never be any cash left on my Curvo account doing nothing. Also, since we don’t charge per trade, it won’t change whether I invest every month or once per year.
• No need to worry about rebalancing. Again, this is a task that I find annoying by now. The rebalancing is infrequent enough, but the monitoring is something I do every month. Curvo will take care of it so I don’t have to worry.
• Invest according to my values. My current portfolio does not take into account environmental or social considerations. This means that all this time, I’ve been investing in oil and gas companies, and in companies that produce cluster bombs and other controversial weapons. And these are counter to my values. With Curvo, we took the deliberate decision of excluding the companies that we think are most destructive to our planet.
• Manage all my investments through my phone. Lynx has a mobile app that works fine for tracking the evolution of my portfolio. But to make the investments, I prefer to use my laptop. First of all, I need a spreadsheet to calculate how many shares of each fund I can buy. Secondly, the interface of the broker is complicated enough that the interface feels cluttered even on a larger laptop screen. I want to make sure that I’m buying from the right exchange, that I’m executing the right type of order, etc… I don’t feel comfortable performing the correct actions through their mobile app. So I’m spending more time managing my investments than I’d like to. With Curvo, you don’t have to do any of those things. So we realized that a mobile app is sufficient for the limited number of actions that you can do. I can perfectly manage all my investments, i.e track the evolution of my portfolio, manage my direct debit, and withdraw any amount that I’d like, simply through the Curvo mobile app.

I’m so excited to show you what we’ve built with Curvo. It’s coming so soon. In the mean time, I welcome you to leave your email address at curvo.eu so that you can be one of our first users (after me though 😜)!