October 2024 FIRE Portfolio Update: Another All Time Highs Month

October2024 was a continuation of the bull market that started a year earlier. While there were noticeable pullbacks in August and September, the bull rages on and October saw absolutely no buying opportunities as markets rallied onward.

August had dips of 10%+ in many of my beloved sectors which marked an incredible buying opportunity. I bought a lot of the dip in August which paid off nicely in September and October. I wish I had bought more which again is my fault as it goes against everything related to timing the market.

If you haven’t already read my posts before, I achieved Financial independence back in late 2020 early 2021 with a portfolio of roughly $1.3m invested in mainly ETFs. This ballooned to $1.7m during the peak of the markets in early 2022 before coming back down to Earth later in 2022. The portfolio has since regained new all time highs as markets rally beyond the previous highs.

This post will be part of a monthly series of portfolio updates that summarizes how my portfolio performed, what trades I executed, what my monthly expenses were, and my general outlook on the economy/markets. This is by no means financial advice so do not look look at me for sage advice. I make stupid trades and make even worse losses quite frequently.

This is simply the performance of my portfolio and how it has performed on a month to month basis.

Monthly Highlights – October 2024

• Net worth is near $1.96m as of OCtober 2024 Month end
• -$30k for the month
• No traveling for the month of October.

Market Moves

What is in my portfolio?

My portfolio is quite simple and straight forward. I have my holdings primarily spread out between a few ETFs, fixed income, and various single name stocks.

ETFs

Again, my primary holdings are in a few ETFs. My primary holdings are in VTI, VGT, and VCR. I’ve always been a big proponent of big tech and have been heavily invested in the Nasdaq for over a decade. This has paid off very well for me given the massive bull market of the 2010s and is essentially what allowed me to FIRE so quickly.

I used to hold more dividend generating stocks as I was really into this type of investing at a period of time. I currently do not have many dividend specific ETFs as I prefer growth more than income. This kind of goes against the ethos of financial independence but I have enough money coming in from other sources that I don’t need to focus so much on consistent income from my investments.

I added to my ETF positions in October 2024 as the market rallied to all time highs in the Dow and S&P.

Single name stocks

Some of the single name stocks I own are the following

• TSLA
• BRK.B
• NFLX
• RITM
• ASML
• ARES

These single name stocks make up less than 10% of my total portfolio. I tend to not buy much single name stocks anymore as there’s no point to take on unnecessary risks when I’m already so diversified with my ETFs.

Real Estate

I currently own no real estate. I used to own property in the US but have sold it in 2022 before rates started rising. I am not a big fan of real estate. While it definitely can be a good investment, I don’t think it beats investing in the markets. In addition, real estate is highly illiquid with high transaction costs that few people consider.

Finally, as someone that travels around the world and does not like to be tied down to one location, real estate doesn’t make sense as managing it from afar creates a bunch of headaches. I much prefer to have my money liquid and in the stock market.

Fixed Income

I also purchased I-Bonds in 2022 at the height of inflation peak when I-Bonds were paying 9.5%. The rates have come down significantly since then as inflation itself has come down and I no longer bother with I-Bonds.

In the recent high interest rate environment, I had allocated a small portion of my portfolio to fixed income products, specifically purchasing treasury bills with 3-6 month expiry. These were paying out 5.5% which was a great guaranteed income generator. In recent months on the back of anticipated FED rate cuts, this rate was always going to come down which meant stocks should increase.

Well the FED cut rates for the first time since COVID in Sep 2024 which means treasury bill returns will be decreasing for the foreseeable future. My last treasury bill expired in July 2024 and that cash was used to buy the market. I suspect I will not buy any fixed income products for the foreseeable future.

October 2024 was a month marked by cautious optimism amid macroeconomic challenges. Investors were closely watching for signs of a “soft landing,” where inflation could be controlled without triggering a recession, but market sentiment remained fragile due to uncertainties in policy, economic growth, and the geopolitical landscape.

Rates were cut by 50 bps in September with another 50 bps projected by year end. While markets have largely priced this in, prices continued to rally with all indices hitting new all time highs during the month.

While volatility remains high, markets have generally moved in a range for the month of October waiting for the all mighty and all important US elections in November. This will likely dictate where the markets go for the next leg.

I have a feeling the US election will be a buy the rumor sell the news type of event. No outcome will be that much of a shock to the markets unlike in 2016 where Trump surprised everyone and their mothers. I suspect markets will gyrate a bit the week of the election (especially if no winner is announced) before resuming its slow upward slog.

Market Value of Portfolio

Here is a history of my portfolio value. As you can see, it’s moved in line with the markets as should be the case since most of my holdings are in ETFs that track the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

In total, my portfolio is sitting somewhere around $1.95m which also includes cash and fixed income positions.

Trades executed for the month of October 2024

October was an average month for trading for me. I bought a lot of things on the dip in August but did not deploy as much capital in or October.

I still am holding on to Tesla even though I talked about selling it in the past few months of my portfolio analysis. After they blew out their earnings, I sold covered calls on my contracts which resulted in a cool $2k of premiums.

Summary of stock and ETF purchases

Dividend Income

For October, I collected a total of around $900 in dividends. Most of my dividends pay out in March, June, September, and December. I typically reinvest my dividends which has served me well during the market downturn of the last year or two. I’ve thought about stopping the reinvestment of dividends due to high prices so I can save a large cash reserve for the next crash but I haven’t gotten around to it.

Portfolio withdrawals and expenses

Withdrawals from my portfolio is an important part of the financial independence ethos. The 4% withdrawal rate rule is one of the main concepts of the FIRE movement which I try to adhere to. Generally, I prefer to sell from my portfolio when markets are near or at all time highs to capture, and only when I actually need the cash.

For the month of October 2024, I was all over Bali again just living the Bali lifestyle. Life in Canggu is probably one of my favorites around the world and I’ve lived in many different places. The cost of living in Bali is quite cheap so there definitely doesn’t need to be much in the way of portfolio withdrawals which is nice.

I made no withdrawals from the portfolio as I had enough cash coming in from my blog as well as leftover cash from other sources. My blog generates money every month to the tune of $6-8k and I cover exactly how I earn money from blogging in other posts.

My October 2024 Blog Earnings

I always give a run down on my monthly blogging income on these monthly portfolio reports because this is about my blog after all. My blog generates quite a lot of money from many years of hard work that it is a huge supplement to my FIRE portfolio.

In May, I switched over to Mediavine from Ezoic for my ad monetization. Mediavine has literally been a revelation for my blogging experience and it’s a complete game changer. My earnings have gone up almost 50% as soon as switching to Ezoic which has really turbocharged my blog earnings.

In addition to Mediavine advertisements, I also earn money from Affiliate programs, sponsorships, and travel planning. More details on these things in my how to make money blogging posts. Here is a breakdown of my monthly earnings.

Compared to the previous month where I made almost $9,000 in blogging profits, October was the beginning of a precipitous decline in blogging. Google has laid down the hammer for bloggers and while I’ve been able to dodge most of their algorithm changes over the past year, the one in October really destroyed my traffic.

Google has moved on to a more pay to play model where it favors big time websites like Forbes, Reddit, Travelocity, etc. which pay big money to advertise on Google. Google has also been actively upping their AI game. This means when you search for questions, Google will generally already have an answer listed out for you. In the past, you would have clicked into someone’s website but now, there isn’t much incentive.

I suspect the era of small time blogging like myself is over. Google will double down on their AI dreams and favoritism for big websites like Reddit which they have partnerships with. Sad times, but that is the inevitable path of capitalism!