January 2020 – FIRE v London

It’s that time of the year when we take stock. Here at FIREvLondon, that means it’s time to do an ‘audit’ of our Finances, and our financial Independence.

Let’s take a look at some of the key questions an audit should consider.

Q1: What state is the balance sheet in?

I review the portfolio performance monthly, and it’s progress against ‘budget’ (i.e. target allocation). As this post highlights, December saw a very strong performance with net assets up almost 23%. An exceptionally strong performance, by historical or future standards, reflecting the 30% gain in the US stockmarket in 2019.

Liabilities remain very much under control too. The margin loan that provides my account with leverage amounts to just over 10% of the value of the assets.

Off balance sheet, the recent move to sell a key residential property and reinvest the money will provide further strengthening of the balance sheet.

Q2: How does the income statement look?

A year ago I borrowed a framework by {indeedably} in which he breaks down his assets and income. He has an unusual way of looking at his state of financial dependence, as shown by his (updated) image below:

Using this framework, 2019 saw me, like 2018, make a clear ‘profit’, or surplus, between total inflows and total outflows. However, from a Financial Independence perspective, i.e. stripping out earned income (and taxes on them), I saw a slight deficit – with outflows exceeding inflows. The chief reason for this was a very high level of expenditure on ‘wants’.

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The UK election already seems some time ago. Really, it was just last month, and mid month too. And it provided welcome clarity – I will say that for it – after several years of frustration. For all the hyperventilating Brexit nonsense, citing ‘enemies of the people’, ‘a treasonous Speaker’, parliament undermining democracy etc, the root cause of much of the last few years’ nonsense was the lack of a majority in Parliament. Parliamentary sovereignty is supreme, and is delegated to the government/executive by a clear majority. All else is noise.

And much as I am no fan of the Tories and the Tory Brexit, the improvement in mood / confidence / sense of clouds lifting after the election result was palpable. The dimwit forex markets lifted the pound above $1.35, before dumping it back where it started once they came to their senses. By the end of the month though sterling had climbed 1-2% against the USD/EUR.

GBP/USD and GBP/EUR since 1 Nov 2019 to 3 Jan 2020

Elsewhere, we saw the new EU commission take over, the USA/China trade war rumble on, and some nasty early season bush fires take root in Australia.

And amidst all this noise, equity markets rose. The UK market grew the fastest, bouyed by the election result presumably; both European and USA markets also saw good gains, admittedly mostly cancelled out by their currencies falling against the pound. Only Australia was the outlier, with a drop in its ‘share market’ somewhat mitigated by the rise in the AUD.

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