Yay, we made it out of 2020. Congratulations! Since we are now cruising into 2021, I thought it would be a good time to look back on this past year. While 2020 was hard and pushed me out of my little bubble, it led to some high points in my life. I bought my first house, got promoted at work, and finally adopted a dog! This year wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows… I definitely had my fair share of low points to counter the good ones but, it really was a good year for me.
What I worked on this Past Year –
Here are a few post’s I wrote that you should take a look at!
Stock Market Portfolio and Investments –
Between my investment in Stocks, Bonds, and peer-to-peer lending; I made just over $1,800 in total from my investments. I stopped investing in peer-to-peer lending with Lending Club in 2019. Because Lending Club was based on lending short term loans between 36 or 60 months in duration, it will take a few years to be completely finished with those residual investments. I was just ahead of their transition away from lending since they ended their lending platform in last year with their acquisition of Radius Bank. I started to see a sharp decline in returns after the market decline and volatility of 2018.
While I mainly focus on a long-term investment strategy, I do enjoy dabbling in day and swing trading. In 2020 I made right around 60 short-term trades with an average return of $30.72 per trade. But, I had a few trades that stood out for good and bad reasons. Both trades were with biopharmaceutical companies based out of Canada. They both were involved with COVID and trying to market a reputable vaccine or drug.
The first trade was made on July 6th with 700 shares of BLU. This was after a 79% price decline after their drug candidate failed. The trading volume jumped from under a million trades to over 100 million trades on the 6th. So, I jumped in and pulled out after making a profit of more than $500.
The second trade was made on July 24th with 225 shares of ABUS. The company was is a patent dispute regarding a potential COVID vaccine that did not pan out well. The day started out good and then followed up with more than a 20% decline in stock value. I tried to catch the price jump and missed terribly. By the time I closed out of my position, I was down close to $600.
Both of these trades were risky, only one paid off while the other didn’t. I took these risks because of how volatile the market responded to each new potential drug or vaccine to COVID. The news and hope led millions of people to jump from one company to the next with each potential chance. You should not expect this level of return on all swing or day trades that you might make. Like I said earlier, my average swing trade return was only $30.
Heading into 2021, I am excited for what the year will bring. What challenges and obstacles I will learn from and new experiences I will have! Starting out the year, I have just over $19,000 invested in long term stocks, and $1,300 invested in peer-to-peer lending through Lending Club.
My goal for my stock portfolio is function as a long-term dividend account. My diversification strategy is broken-down by different sectors and areas. I try and stay close to this breakdown – The majority of my dividends comes from the Real Estate Sector and the Finance Sector.
My estimates for the end of 2021 are $850 in dividends, $400 from Lending Club and my stock portfolio valued at just over $20,000 in long-term stocks. So Cheers to 2020 coming to an end and the potential that 2021 holds! To view all of my personal updates, click here!
© EuduringFinances, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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