Listened to a few webinars and interviews this week. Here's the list.

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Lockdown 3.0​

PM Boris Johnson introduced UK's third lockdown citing the acute infectiousness of the new COVID variant. Brits are again to follow the stay-at-home order i.e. to go out only to shop for essentials, work, exercise, seek medical assistance or escape domestic abuse. The vulnerable are advised to shield and schools will initiate remote learning again. Due to the lockdown, Rishi "now-a-household-name-because-of-COVID" Sunak, pumping roughly £5,000,000,000 to aid businesses in retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors The grants would be worth £9,000 per property in the aforementioned sectors.

To be honest, the spread of this seemingly undefeatable enemy just doesn't make sense. We have an ocean separating our land mass from the rest of Europe (except for Ireland) and the world. The struggle is real!

Recommended Reading: What are the lockdown rules across the UK?

/Start of Thread

1/ Get a cup of coffee. In this thread, I'll walk you through the Rule of 72 -- and related "mental math tricks" for investors.

2/ As humans, we tend to think linearly. When we see a curve, we like to mentally approximate it by a straight line. This helps us cope with changes in the world around us. Changes that happen a constant pace. Changes that don't need our attention for very long.

3/ But in finance/investing, we need to think exponentially, not linearly. Money compounds. Growth doesn't happen at a constant pace; it accelerates over time. Most of us are not programmed to intuitively "get" compounding -- over the long run.

4/ So we need some "mental shorthands". Rules of thumb that help us develop intuition about exponential growth. Tricks that help us do "compounding math" in our head. One such trick is to think of compounding as a process that doubles our money every so many years.
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5/ So the question is: how long does the compounding process take to double our money? The Rule of 72 gives us a simple approximate formula for this:

The data is in --- my average savings rate for 2020 is 58.57%. At the beginning of the year, my goal was to invest 50% of my income every month. This was quite ambitious considering 1) I live in Central London, and 2) I'm a basic income earner.

Okay. First of all, I have been tracking my spending habits since time immemorial so I know exactly how much I would spend in a month. For last year, my budget was £1,200 (Php78,000) which I've only breached once for an £8 difference in January. To ensure I would meet my monthly goal of 50%, I needed an extra £200/month income to complement my average monthly salary of £2,200.  This was effortlessly achievable through agency shifts. The NHS will never run out of extra shifts so there's always one for the taking.

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How did I make sure I'd meet the goal?

1. Rent close to work. I live in a front-liners shared accommodation which is less than 10 minutes walk away from work. This allows me to forecast my household expenses as I don't worry about council tax contribution, utility bills, other dwelling wear and tears, and of course, travel. The only downside to this is that the building has more than 350 residents. My hallway alone has 12 occupants and we have to share the kitchen, shower and toilet facilities. Should I enumerate the hell living in a space with communal areas? No. And I am not going to complain about that. Ego is a bitch.
2. Not fussy with food. Cap my food expense to £150 a month. I could care less about gluten-free, hyped meat-alternatives and organic fruits and vegetables. If it looks palatable, I'd consume it except for junk-food and soda. I also cook 90% of the time, pack my own dinner and/or tea. And...
3. Predictable lifestyle. I feel ill if I don't do some form of exercise so I have a gym membership. I also take regular supplements and protein shake for the gains. COVID wiped-out my "fitness" expenses for 6 months but sans the virus, I know how much I would spend on this facet anyway. Other activities I love are free like walking around Central London, reading books and listening to podcasts. I do Tough Mudder and/or Spartan Race and out-of-London hike once a year which could get a bit costly but I budget this way ahead. My budget for this has not been touched for last year so maybe I could use it to book a superior hotel next time I travel to participate in a Spartan race. Eh?

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"Don't stop a raging bull." In other words, do not short a stock going parabolic. It is a perfect recipe to self-annihilation.

Bitcoin [$BTC] just hit an all-time-high today at $35,751. That's nearly 10x from its March low at $3,596 . 🤯 If one was short on Bitcoin on this explosive rise, leveraged at that, is definitely tapping out.

Vivek outlined a decent bull thesis on Bitcoin as well as the risks associated with it in his Medium article. His bull argument includes Bitcoin's use case as global payment, a catalyst to tech innovation, a monetary policy hedge, proven resilience, viewed as digital gold, potential high valuation, and its halving as potential catalyst. These arguments, however, aren't novel propositions. ARK Invest 2018 Big Ideas projects cryptocurrency to become a multi-trillion industry in years to come. And no, they don't talk about societal doom and gloom as has been spouted by a few permabulls. Rather, the hedgefund asserts the "merits of Bitcoin as a monetary asset." They have a well-researched, technical white paper to support their view.

Recommended Reading: Bitcoin: A Novel Economic Institution

​With its meteoric rise, what could have possibly thrust BTC to new highs in 2020?

Jack Ma

"Where is Mr Ma?" This is the news reverberated by the mainstream media recently, probing for clues on Jack Ma's whereabouts since his public "disappearance" for 2 months now. To recall, in October, Jack Ma made a controversial speech critiquing China's "pawnshop financial regulators and state-owned banks"; calling the latter "old people's club" and blaming the same as suppressor towards business innovation. It appears that after he made the CCP off-putting comment, nothing has ever been smooth-sailing for the billionaire, which also adversely impacted the $BABA stock price.

In early November, Mr. Ma's Ant Group IPO, dubbed as the biggest IPO in history with almost 3 trillion investor demand of its shares was rug-pulled by President Xi by postponing the enterprise's IPO. Perhaps, possibly cancelled. Furthermore, $BABA took a 13% haircut in December 24 after the Chinese regulators sniped the e-commerce giant with anti-monopoly investigation. Alibaba has to pacify its investors by expanding its multibillion share buyback programme.
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$BABA is a retail investors favourite stock and as of writing, everyone seems to be looking for the media-savvy billionaire. Maybe Guo Wengui could shed a light?


Tesla EOY Deliveries
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Hate it or love it, $TSLA has been ripping and breaking shorty shorts hearts and bank accounts since April last year. Whilst its goal is to deliver half a milly vehicles, Tesla reported 499,550 deliveries. $TSLA is now trading at $729/share or $3645 pre-split. Insane!
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​Lord Elon says, "Thanks."
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​Browsing through my 2020 goals and realising how deformed my lists are, is a bit melancholic. I was eager to attend seminars, lectures and FI-RE meet-ups but that didn't bode well due to lockdowns. And by the looks of it, we aren't going back to pre-COVID normalcy anytime soon. However, there is more to life than this stupid virus and to continually live in FUD is egregiously unproductive.

Moving on from 2020, I will embody a "Think more. Execute Ideas More. Everything Else is a Noise." mentality this year as guided by Anton Kreil's 10 Secrets. What I mean by thinking more is simply generating as many ideas as I can, prioritising them and executing the best based on what I want to achieve. A zero ounce of energy would I waste on anything other than the latter.
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Learn
Read 21 books related to finance and investing.
Complete 2 online finance courses per quarter.
Listen to finance and investing podcasts only.

Create
Consistently post on my Youtube channel.
Post at least twice monthly on this blog.
Journal once a week.
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Invest
Create a 10-position portfolio in eToro.
Double Revolut account.
Invest monthly on Bitcoin.


End.

The market took a nose-dive reacting to the worsening Coronavirus spread in the first quarter of the year; only to bounce and catapulted to the moon partly driven by the perpetual quantitative easing of Central banks and ensuring zero interest rates. For what is worth, the market is artificially inflated but it is also indisputable that many sectors profit from the lockdown like eCommerce, Social Media, Digitisation, Cybersecurity, Biotech, Gaming, and other Stay-at-Home Stocks. SPACs getting popular as an alternative route for companies to go public; Bitcoin at all time high, dragging other crypto-assets along with it. When vaccine approval was announced, the hospitality and travel stocks rebound. In return, indices are ripping. Perhaps even the gloomy, dooms-like 2020 has silver-lining.

​How this translates to my portfolio? Let's take a look.
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​Return

​My average return for the year is 28% with only 1 instrument in the red, which is $VUKE. My best performer is BTC, a highly speculative and the riskiest asset that I own. Not a bad return for my trading accounts considering I only started this year actively doing so. A bull market really makes people feel smart about the financial market which is incontestable with the rise of Fintwit superstars coming from nowhere posting their thesis and 100 baggers stock picks. I am not dumb not to know this and I am taking action to ensure that I could still operate in a bear or kangaroo market.
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​Allocation

Overall, my investment allocation is as follows, 50% ETF/Index, 49% Trading Accounts and 1% Bitcoin. For 2021, I will increase my Vanguard allocation by 10%, cap trading account contribution to 35% and BTC at 2%. I am not adding to my Revolut Investment anymore. My eToro gets a boosts next year as I build my trading track record. My overtime money goes to my Trading 212 account as usual. 
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2021 Adjustments

I will not make changes on my currently owned equities except for $VUKE where I will de-risk my exposure by buying the entire UK market. I am no longer comfortable that out of the 100 biggest FTSE companies, only 1% is Tech. However, I will not sell at a loss. I am also bullish on Brexit.
I will increase my BTC position to 2%.
I will protect my capital at all cost and build an actively managed long and short positions.
I will complete 2 financial courses per quarter.
I will only read finance and investing books for the entire year.


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​End.

​Covid sucks! London in Tier 4 lockdown, new Covid mutation spreading in the UK and everywhere else, many are still hospitalised and die on a daily, Christmas is de facto cancelled. When is this global nightmare going to end? Nobody knows for sure and even the medics and epidemiologists are as equally baffled. However, life has to move on and therefore, I'll review my 2020 budget and check how COVID impacted my overall inflows and outflows for the year.
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Income 1 is my main salary as a nurse (after taxes and pension contribution); Income 2 is my supplementary active income (Overtimes and Agency Shifts). I automatically invest (45%-70%) once I receive my salaries (Save First) but the total invested amount will be more as I invest my end-of-month spare change as well. Therefore, my total income for the year is £34,084.72 and my total investment is £20,109.43. I've lost potential agency shift earnings of approximately £1500 due to COVID. This is because, my employer has to cancel all elective cases to convert our Operating Theatres into ITU to accommodate ventilated COVID patients. My investments are spread into 4 accounts, Investment1, Investment2, Investment3/4, and Investment5.
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​My top 3 expenses are rent (59%), giving (20%) and food and beverages (10%). Overall, I spent £13,653.44 which is less than my budget of £14,400/year. Without COVID, I would probably spend a bit more on eating out, Caffe Nero cappuccino, Lions games tickets and lager. I haven't bought clothes this year. 
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I would also like to include the total remittance I sent to the Philippines which is not entirely part of the budget table.
Reasons for these remittances are educational support for my brother, back-up support to my retired parents and opening a new business venture. Over half a million pesos sent this year.


Overall, I did well this year despite COVID. The 20K investment (nearly 60% Savings Rate) is a great achievement considering I live in Central London. Given the above data, I could retire in 8.3 years as per Networthify retirement calculator.
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2021 Forecast

• My basic salary will increase to +£30,000 + allowance, equals 35000 per year (before taxes).
• Agency shifts income will be £10,000 (after tax).
• Rent will likely increase by 4%.
• Going-out related expenses will increase post-lockdown and population vaccination.
• Savings Rate will increase by 4%-5%
• Cap remittance to £5000.

​End.