Well that’s 2023 done and dusted, now lets bring on an amazing 2024. I hope you have achieved most of your investment goals over the past 12 months and I wish you luck with this shiny new year. May the money gods beat you with the lucky stick relentlessly until you achieve financial freedom, freedom from slavery, and you’re free to evolve again.
My ETF dividend portfolio ended the year on a high at $7,807. I know it’s early days for the portfolio as I only started it back in September but I’m happy with the progress so far and I’m hoping to increase it by at least $12,000 in 2024.
The initial plan when I started with ETFs was to just add two or three hundred dollars to the portfolio automatically with Vanguard as I wanted to show how anyone can invest in stocks. At some point in the first couple of months I had completely sold myself on ETFs and decided I will add between $500 and $1,000 per month.
In the future I will probably have all of my equity investments held in ETFs but for now I’m still mostly focused on increasing my individual company portfolios. I will slowly work towards having one third invested in individual Australian stocks, one third in international stocks (mostly US companies), and one third in ETFs.
The ETF Dividend Portfolio for 2023
No more trading days left in 2023 and the ETF portfolio is sitting at $7,807 and 60 cents! Woohoo! That’s $1,122 or about a 14% increase on last month. It’s mostly from contributions of course but all ETFs also increased this month. I guess that’s what they call a Santa rally.
One of the new ETFs that I bought last month shot up about 17%!. I’m used to exchange traded funds moving veeeery slowly but this one moves around like a tech stock! It’s GEAR listed on the ASX from the Australian ETF provider Betashares and is a geared fund of Australian companies. So the ups and downs will be amplified which means it’s not for everyone.
See the Dividend Portfolio from November.
Betashares Direct ETF Investment Platform
Last month I started using the ETF platform started by Betashares in Australia. I believe it’s still only trialing customers for now and it’s only available to Apple users.
My portfolio held with Betashares currently sits at $1,780 with GEAR and QRE. QRE is an Australian resources sector ETF with the likes of mining giants such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals, and Mineral Resources.
I first started using the auto investment feature with Betashares but I realized that I didn’t like fractional shares. I set it up to buy $100 worth of QRE per fortnight but I couldn’t tell how much I paid for each share and I didn’t know how many shares I owned. It was just the value and the gain or loss of the holding. Which is fine as every dollar is being put to work straight away but I couldn’t track it properly on my Yahoo Finance Portfolio.
So I have stopped buying fractional shares with auto invest and will now buy QRE manually in lots of $500+. I started with 63 shares at a price of $8.20 which is now worth $521.01. Now I can track it properly.
The other ETF I plan to buy with Betashares is their NDQ which holds the NASDAQ 100 index. I’m in no great rush to own it though as it’s up 53.63% for the year.
ETF Plans for 2024
I’m big on setting goals and planning for the future. I always have new years resolutions and I’m constantly tinkering with them throughout the year. Otherwise I just don’t get as much done. I need the concrete direction as I’m easily distracted.
My BIG ETF goal is to make $2,000+ in dividends per year. I would like to say that my goal for 2024 is to make $2,000 in dividends but it’s probably being unrealistic. Unless I sell other assets and put the proceeds into this portfolio then it’s simply not going to happen as I would need $40,000 worth of ETFs paying 5% in dividends to achieve this goal. I’m not ruling it out but something magical would have to happen.
Something more achievable but still ambitious is to increase the ETF dividend portfolio by about $1,000 per month. Which means the portfolio would be sitting at $20,000 at the end of 2024.
Another goal is to continue researching covered call ETFs and maybe even think about using options myself. I like the idea of high yielding funds, especially those that pay out monthly (JEPQ, JEPI, etc), but I’m still conflicted about missing out on the upside growth. I’m still focused on growing my wealth rather than simply protecting my wealth or chasing the highest yielding stocks.
What are your investing goals for 2024? Are you a free man yet or just getting started?
Total ETF + Index Funds Portfolio for December
Portfolio value inside the Vanguard website: $3,924
Betashares ETF portfolio: $1,780
ASX listed ETFs held in brokerage account: $2,103
Total Index Funds portfolio value (VHY, VGS, VBLD, GEAR, QRE and IVV): $7,807
Most recent dividend payment (October): $52.90
All dividends paid in 2023: $102.68
All ETF dividend payments since buying $150.64
ETF Dividends Goal: $2,000+ per year.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.