December 2025 Report

December was the first post-retirement month. I am changing the layout of these reports to remove investment performance over the last five years and add in the income and spending report I dropped back in 2018. This is because I have a new focus on making sure spending stays within our budget, whereas it is hard to change investment performance over a five year period on a monthly basis. I will report on longer term investment performance in the annual review as usual.

In December, the Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6550 to USD 0.6674 meaning that USD investment returns are better than AUD investment returns. We had a good month in terms of investment return. Stock markets were slightly up with a lot of intramonth volatility (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 1.07%

S&P 500: 0.06%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 0.26% (forecast)

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 0.27%

Target Portfolio: -0.31% (forecast - depends on HFRI result)

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 0.58%

We gained 1.29% in Australian Dollar terms or 3.28% in US Dollar terms. So we outperformed all benchmarks! These returns are preliminary, because Masterworks will take a few weeks to report, we won't get results from Aura Venture for more than a month, and Angellist report with a three month lag. I was curious about how much I end up revising my monthly performance figures when all the data is available. Here are the results for the last year:

"Original" is the rate of return reported in this blog and "Current" is my current estimate. In the last year, on average I overestimated the rate of return initially. On the other hand, I initially underestimated the return for last December.

The SMSF again outperformed, returning 0.62% beating Unisuper (0.37%) and PSS(AP) (0.40%). 

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. Only US stocks lost money. Futures had the highest rate of return with Australian Dollar Futures contributing the most. Hedge funds made the largest overall contribution.

Things that worked well this month:

• As mentioned above, most hedge funds did well with Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX) gaining AUD 42k and Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX) 17k. Gold, 3i (III.L), and Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX) all gained between AUD 9 and 10k.

What really didn't work:

• Only five investments lost money and no investment lost more than AUD 10k.

We moved towards our target allocation. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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. I made the last USD 10k contribution to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund this month. There will still be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II and III. I am receiving monthly TTR pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF. I will decide how much to recontribute to superannuation later in the financial year. 

This was a quieter month in terms of transactions:

• I sold 5k WAM Capital (WAM.AX) shares.
• I bought net 1k shares of WCM Global Quality (WCMQ.AX). 
• I sold 250 Perth Mint Gold ETF (PMGOLD.AX) shares. 
• I sold all our position in WAM Strategic Value (WAR.AX, 100k shares) in order to fund the 1:1 entitlement offer for the L1 Global Long Short Fund (GLS.AX, formerly Platinum Capital, 85k new shares). 

Here are the income and spending accounts for this month:

Results are shown separately for retirement and non-retirement accounts as well as housing, which nowadays doesn't have much activity. The grey lines 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, and net tax returns. Investment income is shown pre-tax. Tax credits include franking credits on Australian Dividends and imputed tax on 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.

This month, salary hit a record number as I received the redundancy payment of more than AUD 1/4 million. Spending was fairly average at AUD 12k. There was a larger than normal transfer out of superannuation as I made excess concessional superannuation contributions in the previous tax year, which I withdrew from Unisuper. We received a cash gift from Muminmama's father (counted as inheritance). As a result of all this, net worth increased by AUD 347k, almost all of it in non-retirement accounts. Now, I will have to decide how much to contribute to superannuation. I want to hit the goal of transferring AUD 2 million to a tax free pension account. I also want to max out the concessional contribution cap of AUD 30k for this year to help reduce my taxes, which will be very high because of the redundancy payment. The payment itself has low taxes but it pushes most of the rest of my income into the top tax bracket.

To keep things simple, I will use net worth at the end of this month as the "retirement number". Net worth at the end of December not including our house is AUD 6.875 million. Using the 4% rule means we could dissave AUD 275k per annum. Our spending is a lot below that. Total net worth is AUD 8.112 million.

A More Realistic Target Portfolio

A couple of changes to the target portfolio. There are really two target portfolios. One is our desired asset allocation and the other is the benchmark portfolio I compare performance to each month and year. 

The first change applies to the benchmark portfolio. Up till now, I have used the FTSE DSC venture and buyout indices as the proxy for venture capital and buyout PE. But these indices track gross performance before investment fees. Investment fees are very high for these asset classes and it is unrealistic to assume I could match the gross performance. By contrast, the HFRI index I use for hedge funds is net performance after fees. So, I am going to apply the standard 2 and 20 investment fee structure to the returns of these indices. 2 refers to the 2% annual management fee and 20 refers to the carried interest or performance fee - 20% of the profits. 

There is actually a big difference between hedge funds and private equity in how these fees are applied. Hedge funds charge 2% of NAV each year and 20% of the profit above a hurdle rate of return. Usually, if gross profits are in a drawdown - below the previous "high water mark" - no performance fee would be charged. Private equity charges 2% of the original investment and only charges carried interest when an investment is realised - but usually there is no hurdle rate. I will deduct 2%/12 of NAV each month and 20% of profits when gross profits are above the high water mark. I implement this by computing the gross index and then a high water mark index - the maximum of the gross index in all previous months. If the gross index at the end of the month is above the the high water mark, 20% of the percentage increase relative to the high water mark is deducted from returns.* This exaggerates likely fees. On the other hand, I don't take into account the dilution that often happens to early stage venture investors. 

Venture returns are reduced from 1.67% per month gross since January 2008 to 1.22% net and buyout returns fall from 1.29% to 0.93%. These returns are still better than any other asset class.

I have also tweaked the allocations to give 20% to each of long public equity, hedge funds, and private equity. I have also increased the credit allocation to 10%. So, the benchmark portfolio consists of:

MSCI All Country World Index Gross in AUD 9%  

ASX 200 Total Return Index 11%

HFRI Fund Weighted Hedge Fund Index 20%

Net FTSE Venture Index 10% 

Net FTSE Buyout Index 10%

Gold Spot Price in AUD 10% 

TIAA Real Estate Fund 12%

CREF Bond Fund 10%

Winton Global Alpha Fund 5%

Australian Dollar Cash 3%

Short Australian Dollar Futures 31% 

The index is effectively rebalanced monthly.

The 31% short Australian Dollar position is half the total position in hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and bonds. The indices or funds for each of these is in US Dollars. This hedge implies that half of the allocation to these assets is in Australian Dollar denominated funds and half in US Dollar denominated funds.

Our target allocation for investment is close to this. We split the Australian stock allocation into 7% large cap and 4% small cap. Real assets, credit, and futures categories are also broader than the specific funds listed here.

I won't bother deducting fees from the long stocks allocation as you could use ETFs with very low fees to track these indices. 

Here is a graph of the simulated performance of the benchmark since September 1996:

The benchmark has about matched the returns of the MSCI index and gold with a lot less volatility. My own performance was terrible up to 2012 and has tracked the benchmark pretty well since then (it's a log chart). Here is a comparison of the benchmark, myself, and the Vanguard 60/40 benchmark since the latter funds inception:

 

* A simpler approach is just to multiply the gross return by 0.8 and deduct 2%/12 each month. The result of this approach is highly correlated with the high water mark approach. The high water mark approach is more realistic though. Let's say you invested $1000 and gross performance was 100%. Your account now has $1800 and the manager has $200. Now the gross price falls by 10%. Both your share and the manager's share fall by 10%. It would be incorrect to say that your $1800 fell by only 8%.

Effects of Inflation Versus Growth on Stock Returns

 

From this video. Growth is relatively low currently. This explains why the Fed is cutting rates. The most bullish region for stocks is low inflation and moderate growth. Will the fund cut too much and reignite inflation more? Hard to be that bearish here.

November 2025 Report

In November, the Australian Dollar rose very slightly from USD 0.6542 to USD 0.6550 meaning that USD investment returns are slightly better than AUD investment returns. Stock markets were flat or fell with a lot of intramonth volatility (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 0.02%

S&P 500: 0.25%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 0.01% (forecast)

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: -2.51%

Target Portfolio: -0.34% (forecast - depends on HFRI result)

Australian 60/40 benchmark: -0.42%

We lost 1.93% in Australian Dollar terms or 1.88% in US Dollar terms. So the only benchmark we beat was the ASX 200. Our performance was hit by the crash in the price of 3i (see below). After underperforming last month, the SMSF returned 0.16% beating Unisuper (-1.06%) and PSS(AP) (-0.61%).

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. Returns were very mixed. Gold had the largest gain, while rest of the world stocks had the lowest. Gold made the greatest positive contribution and private equity the most negative contribution.

Things that worked well this month:

• Two investments gained more than AUD 10k: Gold (AUD 38k), Berkshire Hathaway (11k).

What really didn't work:

• Four investments lost more than AUD 10k: 3i (-), bitcoin (-28k), Defi Technologies (-20k), and Dash/IPS (-17k). 3i crashed after saying sales growth recently was soft in Action's French market. A more than 25% fall in the share price seems to be an irrational response. The actual earnings report was great. I bought more, but as usual was too early. I got out of all crypto investments (see below). IPS didn't do as well as hoped and so the "earn out" component of the takeover was less than expected.

Here are the investment performance statistics for the last five years:

The top three lines give our performance in USD and AUD terms, while the last three lines give the same statistics for four benchmarks. The middle block gives our performance relative to the indices. 

Our alpha relative to the ASX200 is 2.9% with a beta of only 0.51. We have much lower volatility, resulting in a information ratio of 1.30 vs. 0.99. We capture much less of the downside moves than the upside moves in the market. We also have very good performance relative to the Vanguard 60/40 portfolio with similar volatility but 3.5% p.a. more return. We captured 104% of the upside of this portfolio but only 69% of the downside. But as we optimize for Australian Dollar performance, our USD statistics are much worse. We do beat the HFRI hedge fund index in terms of return, but at the expense of far higher volatility. Our USD volatility is at least less than that of the MSCI index, but our return is almost five percentage points lower!

We moved a bit away our target allocation due to investments and investment performance. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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.

We receive employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We make monthly concessional contributions to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. There is one remaining USD 10k contribution to make to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund and there will be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II and III. I am now receiving TTR (soon to be retirement) pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF and contributing more than the total of these back to my superannuation accounts for the remainder of this financial year. 

I was quite busy making the following additional moves this month:

• I bought 700 shares of 3i (III.L) after the price crashed. I still believe in the company.
• I sold our entire bitcoin position across three accounts. This was just over one bitcoin's worth.
• I also sold our ether position. 
• I sold our Defi Technologies (DEFT) position (15k shares).
• I bought 36k WAM Capital (WAM.AX) shares.
• I bought 5k Regal Partners (RPL.AX) shares.
• I sold 1k WCM Global Quality (WCMQ.AX) shares.
• I sold 500 Pershing Square Holdings (PSH.L) shares.
• I bought 30k Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX) shares.
• I bought 1k Putnam BDC (PBDC) shares.
• I sold 750 PMGOLD.AX gold ETF shares.
• I made a non-concessional contribution of AUD 40k to Unisuper.
• I bought 2k Hearts and Minds (HM1.AX) shares. 

On the whole it is a shift from speculative investments to income investments, though the extra 3i shares are speculative. The last day of the month was my retirement date. This month's net worth (not including our house) together with the redundancy payment I should get this week constitutes our "retirement number". It should be approximately AUD 6.8 million. Using the 4% rule means we could spend AUD 272k per annum. Our spending is a lot below that. Total net worth at the end of November is at AUD 7.78 million.

Update to the Target Portfolio

Time to tweak the target portfolio we use for benchmarking and asset class allocation. I am lowering the allocation to futures from 7.5% to 5% and increasing the allocation to hedge funds from 15% to 17.5%. This better reflects current reality.

Private vs. Public School

Moominmama is a Chinese Mum who stereotypically thinks you should sacrifice anything for your children's education. Her friend from uni days also lives in our city and sends her children to the most expensive private school. So, we have been sending both children to a private school that is in walking distance of our home. I think that public schools are fine, at least where we live. Fees at the private school have increased by 8% in each of the last two years. Then a couple of weeks ago they announced 2026 fees. They are up for the school years relevant to us by almost 23%. The school is suggesting that fees will increase by 9-12% for 2027 and after that by smaller numbers, but it would likely be 7% per year I think. The school community is shocked and outraged by this. The school has taken some financial missteps, but we can't see how more than say 10% is justified. We have gotten a lot of education on school finances in the last fortnight, both on a huge parent WhatsApp group and from the school's own presentation in reaction to the outrage. On Monday there will be a live parent-organized town hall. 

So, I have modelled the effect of these on our finances and in theory we could cope with it, though by Little My's final year the school would be as expensive in real terms as some of the more expensive schools in Melbourne and Sydney now. Trinity Grammar at AUD 44k matches what this school would cost in his final year. Our school has 2,200 students. It grew so big by offering a private education at a reasonable price. Lots of parents are talking about leaving. If students numbers fell but costs remain high they could go into a death spiral, in my opinion, where they have to raise fees more and choke off more and more demand. 

So, we are starting to think about public schools seriously again. Moomintroll will be in Year 5 next year. High School starts in Year 7 here. We are locked into next year pretty much, and it doesn't make sense, I think, to move him to a public primary school for just one year. So, maybe he would move to our local public high school in Year 7.  That school has reasonable NAPLAN test scores. 47% of students are from the top socio-economic quartile compared to 80% at the current school. This will depend on what we think the future trajectory of school fees will be how are finances are holding up.*

In another negative shock, Moominmama's employer announced another restructuring. They will make 5% of research staff redundant and maybe a much higher share of her division. So far, she has managed to survive all the previous restructurings, but maybe her luck will finally run out. Again, we could handle this, but all of this is adding stress. 

* The public high school is a bit awkward to get to. You need to change buses in our local "town centre". I don't think Moominmama should have to drive him there and back every day. After the first year, I think it would be reasonable for him to cycle there and back if the weather is OK. It is actually only 2.5km away. There are bike paths, but also big highways to cross, though there are traffic lights on the crossings. But I did a thought experiment where he took Uber back and forth every day. That would cost about AUD 5k per year, which is a sixth maybe of the private school fees! 

Hockney Sold

Masterworks sold the Hockney painting I invested in. Profit after fees is 23% and the IRR was 6%. They are giving the option to reinvest in another paper or receive the cash. Overall, my Masterworks investments only have a 2% IRR. 

Art has been in a slump while stockmarkets have rallied in the last 3 years. Who knows if it is going to recover now? I'm not inclined to tie up the money again for an unknown period. This is especially given that I am retiring now. So, for now, I am going to withdraw any money I can from this portfolio. I have investments in nine paintings remaining.

FOMO-ing In

I have been saying no to investing in Aura's new venture capital fund when I have been asked. My reason was that I am retiring and don't want to lock capital up. With lower taxes going forward, the negative tax status of Australian venture capital investments isn't so important any more. Also, I am an investor in both their previous funds and the parent company, so that feels risky. Also, I didn't have a current wholesale investor certificate.

But then I saw an email that now is the "last call" before the "first close" and I sent them an email asking if I could invest AUD 100k instead of the usual AUD 250k minimum. They approved right away and I just completed the application form. This is an investment of about 1.5% of net worth, which will be called over several years, so with this lower number it doesn't seem as risky or impose as large cash flow requirements. The fund plans to invest in 25 companies if the target amount is raised. So, this would only be AUD 4k per start-up. At Aura VF 2 I have around AUD 25k exposure to each start-up. And I now have a wholesale certificate again. Also, I have been thinking recently that we can cover our current cash flow requirements with just AUD 1.5 million (8% yield) to AUD 3 million (4% yield) income-oriented investments and invest the other half or more of our net worth in long term growth investments to compensate for inflation and maybe actually grow our net worth. 

But in the end, it's really FOMO.

October 2025 Report

In October, the Australian Dollar fell from USD 0.6613 to USD 0.6542 meaning that USD investment returns are worse than AUD investment returns. Stock markets continued to rise (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 2.26%

S&P 500: 2.34%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 0.55% (forecast)

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 0.39%

Target Portfolio: 1.36% (forecast - depends on HFRI result)

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 1.55%

We gained 1.78% in Australian Dollar terms or 0.69% in US Dollar terms. So we beat three of the benchmarks.

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. Hedge funds had the highest rate of return and the greatest contribution to total return.

Things that worked well this month:

• Seven investments gained more than AUD 10k: Gold (32k), 3i (24k), Tribeca Global Resources (24k), Pershing Square Holdings (23k), Platinum Capital (12k), PSS(AP) (11k), and Domacom (10k). Domacom has not been relisted on the ASX but has issued shares in private placements at 14 cents per share.

What really didn't work:

• No investment lost more than AUD 10k.

Here are the investment performance statistics for the last five years:

The top three lines give our performance in USD and AUD terms, while the last three lines give the same statistics for four benchmarks. The middle block gives our performance relative to the indices. 

Our alpha relative to the ASX200 is 3.0% with a beta of only 0.48. We have much lower volatility, resulting in a information ratio of 1.47 vs. 1.17. We capture much less of the downside moves than the upside moves in the market. We also have very good performance relative to the Vanguard 60/40 portfolio with the same volatility but 3.5% p.a. more return. We captured 102% of the upside of this portfolio but only 62% of the downside. But as we optimize for Australian Dollar performance, our USD statistics are much worse. We do beat the HFRI hedge fund index in terms of return, but at the expense of far higher volatility. Our USD volatility is at least less than that of the MSCI index, but our return is more than five percentage points lower!

We moved a bit away our target allocation due to investments and investment performance. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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.

We receive employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We make monthly concessional contributions to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. We contribute USD 10k each quarter to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund and less frequently there will be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II. I am now receiving TTR pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF and contributing more than the total of these back to my superannuation accounts. During the month I worked on finalizing my redundancy and renewing my wholesale investor certification.

I was quite busy making the following additional moves this month:

•  I made a AUD 75k investment in Aura Group.
• I bought 900 IBTC.AX bitcoin ETF shares.
• I bought 100 QETH.AX ether ETF shares. 
• I sold 6,000 WAM Capital (WAM.AX) shares.
• I bought 9,312 MCP Income Opportunities private credit shares (MOT.AX).
• I bought 5,000 Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX) shares.
• I sold 19,174 Pengana Private Equity (PE1.AX) shares. 
• I sold 5,000 Regal Partners (RPL.AX) shares.
• I bought 5,445 Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX) shares.
• I bought 20,000 WAM Alternative Assets (WMA.AX) shares.
• I sold 250 gold ETF (PMGOLD.AX) shares.
• I sold 2,000 Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX) shares. 
• I sold 1,000 WCM Quality (WCMQ.AX) shares. 

Wholesale Investor Certification

As part of participating in the Aura Group capital raise, I had to get a new wholesale investor certificate. You have to do this every 2 years to remain current. There are two main ways to qualify: Show you have more than AUD 250k in income per year in the last two years or show you have more than AUD 2.5 million in net worth. You need an accountant to certify this. The test is on an individual not household basis. I am using the net worth approach.

I was certified in 2020, but when I tried to renew in 2022, the accountant I used said I didn't qualify, as she wouldn't count my superannuation including my SMSF towards the amount as I was under 60. This didn't stop me from continuing to meet capital calls for my existing Australian venture capital investments. 

Now I meet the required level with or without superannuation. I also argued that I am receiving a TTR pension from each of my superannuation accounts and am over 60 and about to retire. Anyway, I qualified. It cost AUD 550. 

It is much easier to qualify as an accredited investor in the US. You only need USD 1 million net worth and you don't need an accountant to prove it, so it is free. A couple can qualify with just USD 1 million between them. However, primary residences are excluded, which is not the case in Australia. Moominmama qualifies as an accredited investor for our investments via Angellist and the Unpopular Ventures syndicate. 

Required Withdrawal Rate

Following up from the discussion on the safe withdrawal rate here is the history of our required withdrawal rate. This is the past twelve months spending divided by net worth minus housing equity, assuming that we have no other sources of income:

 

Retirement first looked possible in 2018 when we received the inheritance. Without that, we would likely be only just on the cusp of the 4% SWR currently. But then expenditure rose around the birth of our second child and the stock market fell in the pandemic and we went back above the 4% level. There was a voluntary redundancy scheme at my workplace in 2020, but I decided I couldn't afford to do it. 

Since then, we dropped back to a fairly consistent 3% till recently. I was waiting for another voluntary redundancy scheme though I thought about going part-time from age 60. Early this year there was a new scheme and  I submitted my application. Then I panicked and didn't take it up. Meanwhile, markets rebounded and we are now near 2%. My employer reopened the scheme and this time I am doing it. 

My forward projections assume that real expenditure will continue to grow linearly, though actually it looks like it has flattened out:

 

I do assume step downs in spending when each of my children reach age 21. In my worst case scenario, if we only made zero real investment returns after 2026, then our net worth would about halve in real terms by 2050. Our required withdrawal at that point would be 5.5%. That assumes that we don't downsize our house or cut spending.

In the best case scenario–historic rates of return of 8.4% nominal per year–we would have 4 times our current net worth in real terms in 2050.

Something people in the FI community don't talk about is that if you annuitise your wealth you can then withdraw much more than 4%. Maybe 6-7%. This is because you pool longevity risk with other people. 

 

Retirement Update

So, I now have a copy of the contract for my retirement and severance package, following it previously being approved. I will hand in the document in person on Monday. I will still be employed for the next six weeks. The severance package follows a standard formula and amounts to about AUD 255k after tax. That would be similar to working another two years full time. I think Financial Samurai would approve: 

1. I reached financial independence - I will only need to spend less than 2% of net worth initially. That is Ed Thorp's retirement rule. Still, I don't go 100% in equities. I don't want to go through the GFC holding all equities again. I think it is possible to get equity-like returns with much lower volatility.
2. I'm retiring early - at 60, which is less than 67 and very early for people in academia. 
3. I got a severance package.
4. My wife is still working part time. 😎

My life won't change that much, actually. I won't have to teach or go to meetings I don't want to go to. I won't feel guilty about doing other stuff when I am supposed to be doing my job. Like right now 😀 But I wasn't scheduled to teach again till next July, once I finish this year's teaching in late November. I was actually scheduled for 2 months leave in December and January, to use up my "leave balance". But I will still be supervising PhD students, doing journal editing for the next year, and doing some research stuff.

What will change at Moomin Valley? I will probably going back to tracking net worth regularly, as this will be an important number. Obviously, I have been tracking it, but I haven't been reporting on it in the blog except on the NetworthShare widget. The "retirement number" - net worth at the end of November, plus the severance that I will get in December will also be important to keep in mind.

P.S. 

Interesting discussion with Karsten Jeske, where he admits that he hasn't sold any shares and would find it difficult to do, despite all his research on safe withdrawal rates:

 

Aura Pre-IPO Capital Raise

I am trying to get in on this capital raise. Some details still need ironing out. I have investments in two of their venture capital funds. Valuation relative to revenue and EBITDA seems similar to Regal Partners, which I am a shareholder of.

September 2025 Report

In September, the Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6540 to USD 0.6613 meaning that USD investment returns are better than AUD investment returns. International stock markets rose yet again, though the Australian market was down (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 3.66%

S&P 500: 3.65%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 0.83% (forecast)

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: -0.52%

Target Portfolio: 2.70% (forecast - depends on HFRI result)

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 0.83%

We gained 3.63% in Australian Dollar terms or 4.79% in US Dollar terms. So we beat all benchmarks!

Our SMSF returned 3.42% beating both Unisuper (0.60%) and PSS(AP) (0.81%).

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. All asset classes gained. Gold had the greatest return, but hedge funds made the largest contribution to total returns.

Things that worked well this month:

• The following investments gained more than AUD 10k: Gold (AUD 86k), Pershing Square Holdings (PSH.L, 35k), Tribeca Global Resources (TGF.AX, 31k), Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX, 28k), WAM Capital (WAM.AX, 16k), Platinum Capital (PMC.AX, 11k).

What really didn't work:

• No investment lost more than AUD 10k.

Here are the investment performance statistics for the last five years:

The top three lines give our performance in USD and AUD terms, while the last three lines give the same statistics for four benchmarks. The middle block gives our performance relative to the indices. 

Our alpha relative to the ASX200 is 3.0% with a beta of only 0.49. We have much lower volatility, resulting in a information ratio of 1.49 vs. 1.19. We capture much less of the downside moves than the upside moves in the market. We also have very good performance relative to the Vanguard 60/40 portfolio with the same volatility but 4% p.a. more return. We captured 100% of the upside of this portfolio but only 60% of the downside. But as we optimize for Australian Dollar performance, our USD statistics are much worse. We do beat the HFRI hedge fund index in terms of return, but at the expense of far higher volatility. Our USD volatility is at least less than that of the MSCI index, but our return is more than four percentage points lower.

We moved a little bit away our target allocation. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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.

We receive employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We make monthly concessional contributions to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. We contribute USD 10k each quarter to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund and less frequently there will be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II. I am now receiving TTR pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF and contributing more than the total of these back to my superannuation accounts. I made the following additional moves this month:

• I bought 15k WAM Strategic Value (WAR.AX).
• I bought 15k shares of Defi technologies (DEFT.AX), a stock I previously held until April. 
• I bought 4,555 shares of Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX). 
• I did a trade in gold, buying 500 PMGOLD shares and then selling 750.
• bought 375 Metrics Income Opportunities shares (MOT.AX).

No-Brainer Retirement Contribution

In Australia, if you are between the ages of 60 and 67 and you are retired, you can make concessional retirement contributions even if you aren't working at all.* Why would you want to do that?

A concessional contribution is one you can deduct from your income on your tax return. However, the superannuation fund does have to pay 15% tax on the contribution. If your marginal income tax rate is in the 16% bracket–18% including the Medicare Levy–or above, you will save on total tax paid. For example, if you have a paid-off investment property, you might be earning $30k a year in rent. If you make a $12k contribution to super, you will wipe out your income tax bill. Obviously, this saves a lot more tax if you are in a higher income tax bracket.

Now here is the no-brainer bit. As you are retired, if you want, you can turn around the next day and take the money out of super again! 

Maybe you need the money. But even if you don't need it now, unless you stop your existing tax free pension account and start a new one, which is a hassle, earnings will be taxed at 15% in super, vs. the 0% rate you have engineered outside super. If you've already hit the transfer balance cap, then you won't be able to make your tax free pension account any bigger.

Assuming I retire later this year, I am planning to make a concessional retirement contribution to top my concessional contributions for the year up to $30k. As I will probably be in the 30% tax bracket this tax year, the savings will be worthwhile. But I probably won't take it out again right away, unless I have already hit the transfer balance cap.

* After age 67 you need to meet the "work test" to make concessional contributions. You can continue to make concessional contributions even if you have more than $2 million in superannuation. You can't make non-concessional contributions after you reach that level.

New Thoughts on Keeping Superannuation in Accumulation Mode

A year ago, I wrote a post about whether you should initially keep your superannuation in accumulation mode when you retire. I thought that if you don't need to spend the money in your superannuation accounts right away, it doesn't make sense to pay out that money to sit in regular taxed investments. But I missed one key point. Dividends from what Americans call "taxable accounts" are taxable whether you spend them or not, but capital gains are only taxed if you sell. The more capital gains you realise, the higher tax bracket you are going to be in. Unless you are lucky enough to be able to live on dividends from the "taxable accounts" alone, you are going to have to realise capital gains if you don't have a superannuation pension. 

In my case, I might be able to stay in the 16% tax bracket if I don't need to realize capital gains. So, with tax free superannuation, I will pay very little tax. If I kept my superannuation in accumulation mode, I would be paying an average of 12.5% tax on earnings in superannuation and I would have to realise $80k of capital gains in "taxable accounts" instead of receiving a superannuation pension. That would push a lot of my earnings into the 30% tax bracket.* So, I am planning to put my superannuation accounts into tax-free pension mode and pay out the minimum distribution of 4% a year until I am 65.

With my wife still earning around $45k a year in salary for now, I might not need to do much in the way of realising capital gains outside superannuation.

What about just spending the redundancy payment for the first couple of years? Some of that is going to go into superannuation and the rest will sit in our offset account. The more we spend it, the more mortgage interest we are going to have to pay. Despite that, it might actually make sense to spend that first, but psychologically I prefer a big cash buffer, low mortgage interest, and a steady pension coming in. I can just set and forget the pension from Unisuper.

* Of course, long-term capital gains are only taxed at half the headline tax rate, so the effective marginal rate would be 16% including the Medicare levy.  

Employer Approved My Redundancy Again

I heard yesterday that my employer approved my redundancy under this round of the voluntary redundancy scheme. So, if everything goes smoothly, I will retire 30 November, just before my 61st birthday. I would have gone on leave from 1 December anyway, in order to reduce my surplus leave entitlements.

I am already changing my accounting spreadsheets to reflect this. I have also set all my investments to pay out dividends rather than re-invest them in order to maximize cashflow.

Is a Recession and Stockmarket Crash Coming?

There is lots of talk about equities being in a bubble and that a stock-market crash is coming given that unemployment in the US is edging up (though still low) and the Fed is cutting interest rates. From the bullish camp, Anthony Pompliano posted this chart, yesterday:

The number of central banks cutting interest rates usually peaks at stock market bottoms. We look like we are nearing a peak in this variable, but the stock market has been climbing for a couple of years! Based on history, a stock market crash doesn't seem likely, but this is also weird behavior. On the other hand, in 1997-98 the indicator was in positive territory, though falling and the market went sideways, but there is no clearly analogous period. So, I charted the US federal funds rate against the S&P 500 and MSCI World Index total returns indices:

Now, we can find analogies. In 1998, the Fed cut in the wake of the LTCM collapse, but the market went up. Then in late 2019 the Fed started cutting after the yield curve inverted, but the market kept on rising through January 2020, after which the pandemic hit. So, it seems like we are in a similar though longer period. Regarding yield curve inversion, this is where we are:

This shows the difference between the 10 year and 2 year yield. We are in a normal positive yield curve. If the previous yield curve inversion predicted a recession, we should already be in it. On the other hand, maturities shorter than 1 year are higher than the two year yield:

Note that in 1998, the yield curve briefly inverted and then went positive again. It was back into the negative in February 2000. Going negative again now would be a bad sign.

I previously posted that 2025 felt like 1997. Maybe it's 1998. In either case, the base case scenario is that the market will likely rise for a while longer.

Investors' Returns vs. Fund Returns

Report from Morningstar on investors' returns vs. fund returns. Due to badly timed trading, investors made 1.2% less per year than the funds they invested in. My return in USD terms for the relevant period was 6.83%, which is roughly what the average investor made. My AUD return was 9.81% over the same period!

 

Hopefully, This Isn't True

August 2025 Report

In August, the Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6433 to USD 0.6540 meaning that USD investment returns are better than AUD investment returns. It was our second highest spending (in nominal terms, January 2015 was the highest) month ever at AUD 27k. School fees and airfares booking coincided. Stock markets rose again (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 2.51%

S&P 500: 2.03%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 0.54% (forecast)

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 3.30%

Target Portfolio: 0.86% (forecast - depends on HFRI result)

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 1.37%

We gained 1.07% in Australian Dollar terms or 2.76% in US Dollar terms. So we beat all the US Dollar benchmarks but under-performed relative to two of the Australian Dollar benchmarks.

Our SMSF returned 1.31% beating Unisuper (0.75%) but not PSS(AP) (1.35%).

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. All asset classes apart from private equity had positive returns. US stocks had the greatest return and hedge funds made the largest contribution to total return.

Things that worked well this month:

• The following investments gained more than AUD 10k: Gold (16k), Tribeca Global Resources (16k), Berkshire Hathaway (10k).

What really didn't work:

• Bitcoin lost AUD 14k and 3i 10k.

Here are the investment performance statistics for the last five years:

The top three lines give our performance in USD and AUD terms, while the last three lines give the same statistics for four benchmarks. The middle block gives our performance relative to the indices. 

Our alpha relative to the ASX200 is 2.9% with a beta of only 0.48. We still have much lower volatility, resulting in a information ratio of 1.42 vs. 1.12. We capture much less of the downside moves than the upside moves in the market. We also have very good performance relative to the Vanguard 60/40 portfolio with the same volatility but 4% p.a. more return. We captured 100% of the upside of this portfolio but only 60% of the downside. But as we optimize for Australian Dollar performance, our USD statistics are much worse. We do beat the HFRI hedge fund index in terms of return, but at the expense of far higher volatility. Our USD volatility is at least less than that of the MSCI index, but our return is more than four percentage points lower.

We moved a little bit away our target allocation. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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.

We receive employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We make monthly concessional contributions to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. We contribute USD 10k each quarter to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund and less frequently there will be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II. I am now receiving TTR pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF and contributing more than the total of these back to my superannuation accounts. I made the following additional moves this month:

• I bought 1,100 shares of the IBTC.AX bitcoin ETF. I also did a small unprofitable bitcoin futures trade.
• I bought 500 shares of the QETH.AX ethereum ETF.
• I sold 10k shares of WAM Capital (WAM.AX).
• I bought 2k shares of Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX).
• I bought 85k shares of Platinum Capital (PMC.AX).
• I sold 73k shares of Cadence Opportunities (CDO.AX).

FIRE?

The university has reopened the voluntary redundancy scheme after saying that there will be no further forced redundancies. It looks like they have increased the payout to 3 weeks pay per year or service instead of two. My simulation shows that it would be a breakeven until the end of 2028 under the assumption I work full time in 2026 and half time in 2027 and 2028. In addition, I now know that I will get a UK state pension. Using the 4% rule, that means I need to save AUD 1/2 million less than I would otherwise need to. 

We don't need to reapply if we applied previously. My previous application was approved. But I said no. So, maybe I can say yes now. Technically, I would be retiring early as I am younger than 67, even though I can get a tax free pension from my superannuation.

2024-25 Taxes

Here is a summary of my 2024-25 Australian tax return (all numbers in Australian dollars):

You can find previous years here. Our expected tax refunds will be lower than last year. In my case, I used up all the carried over capital losses and so have a net capital gain for the first time in a long time. Deductions were down due to reducing margin interest paid. As a result, net income rose 10%. Still below the magic $250k level needed for wholesale investor status based on income. My tax due rose by 14%. As a result my expected tax refund is down to just $610.

Here is a summary of Moominmama's tax return:

She too had a big increase in net capital gain and other investment income. Gross income rose 34% as a result. Deductions only rose by 2% and so taxable income almost doubled! Franking (tax already paid by Australian companies that is stapled to dividends) and foreign tax credits still more than offset the more than tripled gross tax bill and so tax due is still negative but only a quarter of last year's number. So, the expected tax refund is down steeply, but still nearly $8k.

I am still collecting tax statements for our self-managed super fund. It will be a long time till its tax return is submitted by our administrator, SuperGuardian. 

June 2025 Report

I waited for all investment returns for the financial year to be in before posting this report, though, in the end, it didn't make much difference. In June, the Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.6431 to USD 0.6559 meaning that USD investment returns are better than AUD investment returns. Stock markets rose (total returns including dividends):

US Dollar Indices

MSCI World Index (gross): 4.53%

S&P 500: 5.09%

HFRI Hedge Fund Index: 2.36%

Australian Dollar Benchmarks

ASX 200: 1.47%

Target Portfolio: 1.95%

Australian 60/40 benchmark: 1.79%

We gained 0.68% in Australian Dollar terms or gained 2.68% in US Dollar terms. So the only benchmark we beat was the HFRI. We under-performed the target portfolio because our returns for private equity and US stocks were a lot below the benchmark returns.

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. All asset classes but gold and Australian small cap had positive returns with the strongest rate of return and the largest contribution from Australian large cap.

Things that worked well this month:

• More than AUD 10k gain: Unisuper (19k), Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX, 12k), Australian Dollar Futures (10k). Also at all time high profits:  PSS(AP) (9k for the month), CREF Social Choice (7k), Acadian (6k), WCM Global (WCMQ.AX, 2k), CFS Imputation (2k).

What really didn't work:

• Gold (-14k). At all time low profits: WAM Capital (WAM.AX, -1k).

Here are the investment performance statistics for the last five years:

The top three lines give our performance in USD and AUD terms, while the last three lines give the same statistics for four benchmarks. This month, we have added the Vanguard 60/40 ETF portfolio to the set of benchmarks. The middle block gives our performance relative to the indices. 

These are now measured from the end of June 2020. Our alpha relative to the ASX200 fell to 3.0% with a beta of only 0.48. We still have much lower volatility, resulting in a information ratio of 1.41 vs. 1.09. We capture much less of the downside moves than the upside moves in the market. We also have very good performance relative to the Vanguard 60/40 portfolio with the same volatility but almost 4% p.a. more return. But as we optimize for Australian Dollar performance, our USD statistics are much worse. We do beat the HFRI hedge fund index in terms of return, but at the expense of much higher volatility. Our USD volatility is at least less than that of the MSCI index, but our return is more than four percentage points lower.

We moved towards our target allocation as I again tweaked the allocation. Our actual allocation currently looks like this:

About 65% of our portfolio is in what are often considered to be alternative assets: real estate, art, hedge funds, private equity, 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.

We receive employer superannuation contributions every two weeks. We make an annual concessional contribution to Moominmama's superannuation to reach the annual cap on contributions. We contribute USD 10k each quarter to the Unpopular Ventures Rolling Fund and less frequently there will be capital calls from Aura Venture Fund II. I am now receiving TTR pension payments from both Unisuper and our SMSF and contributing more than the total of these back to my superannuation accounts. (around AUD 4k net contribution per month). I made the following additional moves this month:

• Closed investments in Generation Global and Aspect Diversified Futures and switched the money to the Acadian Global Long Short Fund.
• Invested USD 2,500 in a syndicated start up at Unpopular Ventures. In my reporting, all these small investments are reported together with the UV Rolling Fund. Similarly, individual paintings I invested in at Masterworks are all reported together, as are individual property investments at Domacom.
• Sold 1,000 shares of James Hardie (JHX.AX) closing this trade for about an AUD 600 loss.
• Bought 500 shares of the gold ETF (PMGOLD.AX). 
• Net sold 3,250 shares of WCM Global Quality (WCMQ.AX). 
• Bought AUD 45k of the First Sentier Imputation Fund. 

All Time Contributions of Asset Classes

I was wondering how much each asset class has contributed to our total profits to date. It was easy to compute this number using the spreadsheet I use to compute monthly gains on individual investments and asset classes. The numbers are only estimates. For multi-asset class funds, I assume that each asset class in the fund has the same rate of return. So I multiply each asset class share by the total profit for the fund to get the contributions of that fund to total returns for that asset class. This is also how I compute asset class returns each month. Here are the results:

Private equity has contributed the most followed by Australian large cap and gold. Contributions of bonds and real assets are surprisingly large. They may be an artifact of how I compute the contributions from multi-asset funds like our employers' superannuation funds. Also, Commonwealth Bank is all attributed to bonds, when about half my return was from my investment in the Colonial IPO rather than my later investments in CBA hybrids. Finally, 17% of Regal Investment Fund (RF1.AX) is currently in private credit but most of my returns were made before they even invested in private credit! So, this is biased upwards.

Coincidentally, I am changing the name of the Bonds asset class to Credit. Private credit isn't bonds. It isn't even "fixed income". The category covers both private credit and bonds.

UK Pension Update

Back in April, I got a letter from the UK pension authority laying out the voluntary contributions I could make to get a UK pension. They sent this via snail mail and there were only a few days left to the deadline to make the contributions. I transferred money to their Barclays account from Commonwealth Bank. I thought this would be more reliable than OFX. But turns out that OFX may have been better because CBA only allowed me to put the relevant reference code in the "message" field rather than a standard "reference field". 

I soon got another letter asking for 2023-24 contributions, which I made. I waited a couple of months, as the website said it could take up to 8 weeks for my National Insurance record to be adjusted. It was still the same when I checked. I phoned the help number at HMRC and after waiting for ages and starting to talk with someone with a heavy foreign accent on a bad line, got cut off. I tried to send a letter with copies of my transfer receipts by express mail. But the Australian Post Office computer system couldn't handle non-geographic UK postcodes! So, I resorted to sending the letter by regular airmail in a hand addressed envelope. 

In the process, I managed to drop my wallet in the shopping mall. I got it back the next day from the mall concierge desk with all the cash intact! I think the last time I lost my wallet was almost exactly 30 years before in Albertville in France on an epic bike trip from London to Nice. I didn't get it back that time, but a nice policeman found a hotel that was prepared to host me until I received a spare credit card I got my parents to send me from London. 

A month later, I just checked the HMRC website and see this:

Previously, I think it forecast around £400 per month. So, it looks like they updated my record! It's all pretty confusing because the website still says most contribution years are incomplete but doesn't say how much I did contribute! It also says I am short about £17 for 2023-24, despite me sending the amount they requested. I will send it with next year's contribution.

This forecast includes the effect of contributions in the years up to 2031. In my accounts, I value this pension as the value of contributions I made - around AUD 9k. But using the 4% rule it is equivalent to needing AUD 538k less money in the 4% portfolio to get a given expected income stream! The net present value is a lot less than that.

 

Kyte

 

I invested in this startup via Anglelist. Turns out that I invested more in this one (USD 15k) than any other, Now they are shutting down. That is something you should expect often with startups. I already knew they were closing, but now it's public I can let you know too.

Ether

Opened a very small position (0.24%) in Ether (technically that is the correct name for the cryptocurrency via the QETH.AX ETF traded on the ASX. Oscar Carboni put out a $6,500 target. It is currently at USD 4,666.

 

Back into Platinum Capital!

Just over a year ago, I sold out of Platinum Capital (PMC.AX). It had been under-performing and the company announced a plan to merge it with an active ETF (PIXX.AX) also managed by Platinum. The price was close enough to net asset value (NAV) as a result and I got out. In the meantime, L1 took over Platinum (the fund manager) and also bought a stake in Platinum Capital. Then yesterday Platinum Capital announced that the merger had been abandoned and L1 plans to take over management of PMC using the strategy that they have applied in their existing listed investment company (LSF.AX) but using a global investment universe instead of an Australian focused one. The market had been expecting the merger to be cancelled, as the share price of PMC was trading around 12% below NAV. So now is a good opportunity to reinvest in PMC because of the discount and hopefully better future performance under L1. They have been running a seed version of the new strategy, which has gained 27% since the beginning of the year. 

I plan to sell down part of my holding in Cadence Opportunities (CDO,AX) to fund this new investment.  This stock is very illiquid so it is likely to be a slow process.

My long history with Platinum Capital and related Platinum funds. Green is investment valuation, red is net invested capital and orange is profit: