Saving for Retirement - Stock Market Exchange Traded Funds | July 2023

Welcome to this month's ETF Investment Update

Guest author: @hoosie

What is SPI?
SPI tokens are growth investment tokens that pay a weekly dividend. They have been circulating for over 2 years, on STEEM HIVE. Mostly sold for 1 HIVE, each token today is worth over 4 times its HIVE issue value and 12x its dollar value. On top of that, token holders receive roughly 8% every year from weekly dividends. We raised $13k from issuing SPI tokens which has been used to grow a diverse portfolio of investments, many of which provide streams of passive incomes. SPI tokens are part ownership of all SPinvest tokens, accounts, assets and income. The price of each SPI token is its liquidation value as SPI tokens are 100% backed by holdings. Hardcapped to roughly 94,000, no more can be minted or issued. Adding, hold and compounding has us on the road to major growth and these tokens are still growing in value.

SPI tokens are part ownership in an actively managed fund. We have our hands in over 20 investments with the lion share being HIVE, BTC & ETH. We do not FOMO or chase pipe dreams. Tried and tested works best and is safest. Our motto is "Get rich slowly" and compounding down on sound investments is our game. You should invest in SPI tokens with the mindset of not selling for 3-5 years minimum. Follow @spinvest for weekly holdings and earnings reports.

Introduction

I invest in stock markets through Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Share Funds via Fidelity UK. My investment strategy is for long term gain (5+ years), and I tend to DCA in when I can (but I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it or put my family at financial risk). I invest in ETFs and funds as I like spreading my investment across a basket of shares, as opposed to trying to pick individual shares, which would be too risky for me. I tend to stick to solid funds within the US, UK and Europe, and have a liking for tech funds. I do not day-trade, or look for short term flips. Please take that into account, and always do your own research!

What's Happening This Month

Monthly KPIs

I use a number of Key Performance Indicators to help me gauge how the overall markets are performing and it also helps me to try to understand where money is moving.

Looking at the monthly change columns:

• I've added the Nasdaq to the table - its another major US stock index, and one that I use and trade in, so it makes sense to add it,
• Nice big gains from BTC over this last period, as we are all aware, so more money has been moving into crypto - will be interesting to see how that continues especially with ETFs gaining approval that can hold BTC - you would think that would improve the price further,
• The UK FTSE100 and gold are down by similar amounts, whereas the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have had nice gains,
• In particular BTC, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are pretty much at their annual highs, or have been in the last week or so !,
• I've had to look at the 5 year graphs for FTSE100, S&P500 and the Nasdaq to help make an investment decision for this month - as follows:

Credit - BBC News website - accessed on 02/07/23, although it notes its source as Morningstar

• The FTSE100 is around its 5 year peak, which I find surprising actually, but its hard to tell really where its going. If its a little blip on the way further up, then its maybe worth buying something for a small gain, however it really is hard to tell.

Credit - BBC News website - accessed on 02/07/23, although it notes its source as Morningstar

• The S&P500 hasnt hit its 5 year peak yet, and certainly looks to be on an upward trend,

Credit - BBC News website - accessed on 02/07/23, although it notes its source as Morningstar

• And not surprisingly the Nasdaq shows a similar overall pattern and again has not hit its 5 year peak, however, it seems to have a little more room to grow than the S&P500.

So my thoughts on share fund investment are:

• US shares still look like they have room to improve with the Nasdaq potentially having a little bit more room than the S&P500, so I'll look at my options around the Nasdaq and punt for that this month.

Credit - slickcharts.com - accessed on 02/07/23

The above list shows some of the top Nasdaq companies. This is actually a list from the 'Nasdaq 100 QQQ' ETF, showing companies by weighting in the ETF, so its not the official Nasdaq top 100 companies - but its good for illustrating the companies I'd like to focus on in picking something to invest in this month. Scanning the list, there is only one company I havent heard of ! As can be seen, these really are pretty impressive companies.

Recent Trade activity

I have some spare cash this month and, taking account of the above am going to plump for a fund called Schroder US Equity Income Maximiser fund (SCUZI) again. I had searched around and found that fund back in March as I liked the portfolio, fees and the dividends, but havent been able to drop much into it so far. Back then (21/03/23) the price was £0.6106 (GBP), today it sits at £0.6526, so its been growing nicely. And importantly the fund holds a number of key Nasdaq companies, so it matches well with my thoughts from the data above. It also pays out quarterly dividends, which I've been wanting to grow as well, so thats another good reason for me.

Credit - Fidelity.co.uk website - accessed on 02/07/23

Its not a perfect match to the Nasdaq, but as can be seen it has a good few of them in the top 10. So I punted £250 into that fund - heres hoping its going onwards and upwards !

Monthly Fund Focus

Each month I'll review one of the funds I use (or am considering using) and take a look at its key features and its performance.

For this month I will focus on LGTXA. Its a fund I really like and have quite a lot of my portfolio in, and when making my investment decision this month, it was the other fund that I was considering adding more to:

Legal & General Global Technology Index Trust R Acc (LGTXA)

It makes up about 23% of my portfolio and is the largest holding I have.

The objective of the Fund is to track the performance of the FTSE World -Technology Index (the “Benchmark Index”) on a net total return basis before fees and expenses are applied. Therefore, the Fund’s performance may differ from the Benchmark Index due to the deduction of fees and expenses and the impact of any tracking error factors. The Benchmark Index is comprised of shares in companies from the developed and advanced emerging markets that are engaged in information technology and are included in the FTSE World Index. The Fund is a Replicating Fund as it seeks to replicate as closely as possible the constituents of the Benchmark Index by holding all, or substantially all, of the assets comprising the Benchmark Index in similar proportions to their weightings in the Benchmark Index. The Fund will have at least 90% exposure to assets that are included in the Benchmark Index..

Credit - Fidelity.co.uk website - accessed on 2/07/23

• The fund is pretty much a tracker, and is managed by Legal & General (Unit Trust Managers) Ltd in the UK,
• Current price at 02/07/23 is £1.19 per share (GBP), 12 month low £0.8589, 12 month high £1.19 - so its standing at its 12 month high,
• Its an accumulation fund, so its dividends are reinvested into the fund to improve the fund price - and this is the reason I didnt go for it this month. I've been wanting to build up my dividend return which gives me more cash to invest with where I choose, so thats why I went for SCUZI instead as it pays out decent dividends quarterly,
• It has a low ongoing charge of 0.32%, because its mostly a tracker, and a minimum investment of £25 which is nice,
• The fund is very much growth focused, and has investments across 256 equities,
• The fund's money is mostly invested in the US (82%) with the rest spread across Asia (8%) , Europe (5%), and Japan (3%),
• And interestingly it has a lot of Nasdaq key players, probably more so than SCUZI:

Credit - Fidelity.co.uk website - accessed on 02/07/23

Its 1 year growth chart shows nice performance in the year:

Credit - Fidelity.co.uk website - accessed on 02/07/23

So there is a lot I like about LGTXA - the low fees, tech/Nasdaq holdings and strong performance, and I'm more than likely going to be investing in it further in the future.

Round-up

So its still the US and tech companies for me at the moment - they appear to have room to grow.

However, with all the news about BTC ETFs coming online I will also be taking a closer look at those in the near future. I'm not sure if I have access to these yet via Fidelity, but with the current price of BTC these may be a good bet.

Thats my round up for the month.

If you have any advice to share or tips for funds, I'd love to hear about them - and feel free to leave feedback on the post - I'd love to know what you think !!!

All the best @hoosie

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