My Investments Update – March 2022

Here is my latest monthly update about my investments. You can read my February 2022 Investments Update here if you like

I’ll begin as usual with my Nutmeg Stocks and Shares ISA, as I know many of you like to hear what is happening with this.

As the screenshot below shows, my main portfolio is currently valued at £20,859. Last month it stood at £20,870, so that is a modest fall of £11.

Nutmeg main portfolio March 2022

Apart from my main portfolio, I also have a second, smaller pot using Nutmeg’s Smart Alpha option. This is now worth £3,166 compared with £2,682 last month. However, that includes an extra £500 I deposited in February. If you deduct this from the current value that gives a figure of £2,666, a net fall of £16.

Here is a screen capture showing performance over the last month.

Nutmeg Smart Alpha March 2022

Obviously a big factor affecting equity prices this month has been the situation in Ukraine. The orange dot on both charts above shows the date when Russia invaded.

The war in Ukraine is above all a human tragedy, but inevitably it has serious implications for investors as well. So far, as you can see from the charts, the invasion hasn’t had a major impact on my Nutmeg investments (there was actually a bigger fall the previous month, due partly to tensions in Ukraine but also to economic factors like rising inflation). But obviously, if things go badly in the coming weeks, there could be bigger losses to come.

Even so, I intend to stay calm and avoid any panic reaction. I certainly don’t intend to crystallize my losses since the start of 2022 by selling up. I have already topped up my investment once while asset values are depressed and intend to do so again before this year’s ISA allowance ends in April.

As I have said before on PAS, all equity investments should be regarded as medium to long term. And it is worth noting that since I started investing with Nutmeg in 2016 I have still enjoyed a total return on my main portfolio of 45.72% (or 64.72% time-weighted). I should also mention that I selected quite a high risk level for both my Nutmeg accounts (9/10 for the main one and 5/5 for Smart Alpha). This has served me well generally, but I’m sure investors who selected lower risk levels will have seen smaller falls over the last couple of months.

  • If you also have a Nutmeg portfolio and plan to withdraw from it in the next few months, there is certainly a good case for switching to a lower risk level right now.

You can read my full Nutmeg review here (including a special offer at the end for PAS readers). If you are still looking for a home for your 2021/22 ISA allowance, based on my experience over the last six years, they are certainly worth considering.

If you haven’t yet seen it, check out also my blog post in which I looked at the performance of Nutmeg fully managed portfolios at every risk level from 1 to 10 (as mentioned, my main port is level 9). I was actually pretty amazed by the difference the risk level you choose makes. If you are investing for the long term (and you almost certainly should be) opting for a hyper-cautious low-risk strategy may not be the smartest thing to do.

As regular readers will know, this year I am using Assetz Exchange for my IFISA. This is a P2P property investment platform that focuses on lower-risk properties (e.g. sheltered housing on long leases). I put an initial £100 into this in mid-February 2021 and another £400 in April. Everything went well, so in June 2021 I added another £500, bringing my total investment on the platform up to £1,000.

Since I opened my account, my Assetz Exchange portfolio has generated £44.26 in revenue from rental and £74.68 in capital growth, a total of £118.94. That’s a decent rate of return on my £1,000 investment and does illustrate the value of P2P property investment for diversifying your portfolio when equity markets are volatile.

I won’t bother publishing a statement on this occasion as it’s not hugely different from last time. The bottom line is that I (still) have investments in 21 different projects with them and all are performing as expected, generating income and – in every case now – showing a profit on capital. So I am very happy with how this investment has been doing.

  • To control risk with all my property crowdfunding investments nowadays, I invest relatively modest amounts in individual projects. This is a particular attraction of AE as far as i am concerned. You can actually invest from as little as 80p per property if you really want to proceed cautiously.

As mentioned, my investment on Assetz Exchange is in the form of an IFISA so there won’t be any tax to pay on profits, dividends or capital gains. I’ve been impressed by my experiences with Assetz Exchange and the returns generated so far, and intend to continue investing with them. You can read my full review of Assetz Exchange here. You can also sign up for an account on Assetz Exchange directly via this link [affiliate].

Another property platform I have investments with is Kuflink. They have been doing well recently, with new projects launching almost every day. I currently have over £2,100 invested with them, quite a large proportion of which comes from reinvested profits. To date I have never lost any money with Kuflink, though some loan terms have been extended once or twice. On the plus side, when this happens additional interest is paid for the period in question. At present all my Kuflink loans are performing to schedule.

Another of my Kuflink investments reached maturity in the last few weeks and I reinvested the capital released. You can see a screen capture of the new project below, a loan to convert some waste ground in the Stevenage district into a car park. It was a different sort of project from those I have previously invested in, but the case set out on the website seemed convincing.

Kuflink investment Stevenage

My loans with Kuflink pay annual interest rates of 6 to 7.5 percent. As mentioned above, these days I invest no more than around £150 per loan (and often less). That is not because of any issues with Kuflink but more to do with losses of larger amounts on other P2P property platforms in the past. My days of putting four-figure sums into any single property investment are behind me now!

  • Nowadays I mainly opt to reinvest the monthly repayments I receive from Kuflink, which has the effect of boosting the percentage rate of return on the projects in question

You can read my full Kuflink review here. They offer a variety of investment options, including a tax-free IFISA paying up to 7% interest per year with built-in automatic diversification. Alternatively you can now build your own IFISA, with most loans on the platform (including the one shown above) being IFISA-eligible.

I’d also particularly draw your attention to Kuflink’s revised and more generous cashback offer for new investors [affiliate link]. They are now paying cashback on new investments from as little as £500 (it used to be £1,000). And if you are looking to invest larger amounts, you can earn up to a maximum of £4,000 in cashback. That is one of the best cashback offers I have seen anywhere (though admittedly you will need to invest £100,000 or more to receive that!).

  • I also recently published a blog post about another P2P property investment platform called BLEND. Like Kuflink, they offer the opportunity to invest in secured loans to experienced property developers. They offer (on average) somewhat higher rates of return than Kuflink, though arguably with a little more risk. As well as my blog post about BLEND, you can also check out what they have to offer on their website [affiliate link].

Moving on, I have another article on the always-excellent Mouthy Money website. This is quite a personal one in which I set out my views about the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. For various reasons set out in the article I am not a fan of this. You can read my article here 🙂

I also recommend reading the article on Mouthy Money by my blogging colleague Finance Dee titled Panicked About the Stock Market? Why It Pays to Keep Calm and Carry On. Dee’s views very much reflect my own on this subject.

That’s more than enough for now, so I’ll sign off till next time. I hope you are keeping safe and well, and (if you live in England especially) are enjoying the more relaxed Covid restrictions that now apply. Here’s looking forward to a more normal spring and summer than the last two years. If you’re planning any UK short breaks, don’t forget I have a list of places I have visited and recommend here 🙂

Disclaimer: I am not a qualified financial adviser and nothing in this blog post should be construed as personal financial advice. Everyone should do their own ‘due diligence’ before investing and seek professional advice if in any doubt how best to proceed. All investing carries a risk of loss.

Note also that this post includes affiliate links (disclosed). If you click through and perform a qualifying transaction, I may receive a commission for introducing you. This will not affect the product or service you receive or the terms you are offered.

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