Skip to content Welcome to my second monthly personal finance journal and in hindsight, what a month it has been! March was anything but quiet, with tariff news and global trade tensions shaking the markets. Despite the short-term volatility, I’m staying bullish on the long-term outlook. From my perspective, trade wars eventually settle and this feels more like a healthy market pullback than a full-blown crisis.
That said, I’m writing this in early April, market has dropped further so I do already regret some of my moves in March. However, I want to be consistent with my approach to mechanically add to my portfolio when opportunities arise as no one knows when the market will bottom. Let’s dive into the March highlights!
Used More Cash in Super
Earlier, I had around 29% of my superannuation in cash, which felt excessive. I’ve now deployed about half of that into international shares—specifically unhedged and hedged International Shares Index. My regular salary contributions continue flowing into the Indexed High Growth through Hostplus.
Looking ahead, if the market drops another ~10%, I plan to further deploy the remaining cash. Superannuation is a long-term vehicle so I want to get my capital working as much as possible.
Options Trading: Lessons Learned the Hard Way
March wasn’t kind to my options trading journey and that’s entirely on me. I broke multiple trading rules I usually swear by. I was hoping for a V-shaped recovery, but the bounce never came. The biggest failures were not sticking to my stop loss levels and breaking my rule about avoiding long positions on stocks trading below their 50 days and 200 days moving averages—a classic red flag showing bulls are losing control.
To make things worse, I averaged down on losing trades which compounded the losses. In April, I aim to reset and become more disciplined and adaptive to market conditions.
Investing More via NAB Equity Builder
In hindsight, my February entry into NAB Equity Builder was premature, jumping in when the market was only down about 5% from the highs. That said, I’ve continued to build my exposure.
In March, I invested an additional:
$30,000 into NDQ (Nasdaq-100 ETF)
$20,000 into HNDQ (hedged version to mitigate currency risk, considering AUD’s “risk-on” nature)
This brings my total tech exposure via NAB Equity Builder to $70,000, which I consider sufficient for now. The management fees for NDQ and HNDQ are definitely pricey (0.48% and 0.51%), so I’m now looking at other ETF options like IVV, DHHF or BGBL for future additions. The aim is to seek lower fees and broader diversification outside the tech-heavy NASDAQ.
| Ticker | Quantity | Total $ | Avg Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| NDQ | 1053 | $49,939.00 | $47.43 |
| BGBL | 401 | $29,930.52 | $74.64 |
| HNDQ | 508 | $19,975.27 | $39.32 |
Quick Breakdown:
Total new investment: $50,000
Personal capital: $15,000
Borrowed through NAB Equity Builder: $35,000
Principal + Interest, comfortably covered by my cash flow
Well, that wraps up my March update! If you have any questions or want to discuss, feel free to reach out!
Disclaimer: I am not recommending any products mentioned below. You should conduct your own research and seek independent legal, financial, or taxation advice to understand how this information may apply to your unique circumstances.
| Investment | Balance | Change $ | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superfund | $172,751.00 | -$2,585.58 | -1.47% |
| Moomoo (Options) | $6,180.00 | -$8,756.00 | -58.62% |
| Fundlater | $10,008.00 | -$356.00 | -3.43% |
| NAB Equity Builder NDQ | $47,974.00 | -$2,026.00 | |
| NAB Equity Builder BGBL | $28,322.00 | -$1,678.00 | -5.59% |
| NAB Equity Builder HNDQ | $19,705.00 | ||
| Total | $284,940.00 | -$15,401.58 |
