Quarter 2 2020 — Net worth update: Up $201,000

Well, who expected that turnaround on the markets? Personally, I thought there’d be a U shaped market recovery at best. But the state of the wider economy is the gorilla in the room…

Many states in America are experiencing their worst weekly increases in coronavirus cases only weeks after coming out of lockdown, and countries such as Brazil are still peaking. It doesn’t bode well for the future for as long as we don’t have a vaccine or an effective treatment. Meanwhile, Victorian lockdowns show that coronavirus still walks among us in Australia.

Tellingly, while the market has recovered significantly off its lows, when a few brave individual companies have provided updated guidance, their share price have usually been smashed as their earnings have (understandably) taken a significant hit. Others simply pulled all guidance. Yet the rest of the market largely rolled along with blinkers on.

Earnings season in August has the potential to be a real eye opener for the market. The long term potential of companies might not be severely impacted, but the short-to-medium term won’t be all roses. So I find it hard to rationalise the market’s behaviour, especially as the market’s favourite thing is usually certainty. As pointed out in our concerns, the last thing the market currently has is certainty.

Irrespective of all that, given the market rebound and that shares are our biggest asset class, this was a good quarter for us financially after taking a nasty $277,000 hit last quarter.

Let’s take a look at what transpired and what the impact as been to our net worth over April-June 2020.

Our financial goals

As always, here is a reminder to our early retirement goals. We’re looking to retire early before the age of 45 (and we’re currently 35 and 36) with a pre-tax FatFIRE budget of $150,000 a year, comprised of following in assets:

• $2,000,000 in shares
• $600,000 in two investment properties
• $700,000 in superannuation
• $1 million primarily place of residence
• Total asset goal = $4,300,000.