Travel Updates & Portfolio Check

A look back over the last 3 months of travel and portfolio performance

Nov 13, 2024

I’ve spent the last 10 weeks in South America locked into the market positioning my portfolio setting it up for what I think is going to be one of the biggest bull markets of my generation.

I spent one month in Buenos Aires, a month in Asunción, Paraguay, and a couple of weeks in Medellín, Colombia. It hasn’t been a typical “traveler’s” experience, most of my time was spent in cafes with my laptop, locked into the market.

There will be plenty of time for the touristy activities, which I’ll save for when I have a base or traveling with friends or family. Despite that, I’ve still had an incredible time and can’t wait to return to that side of the world. The main purpose of this trip was to set up my tax residency in Paraguay and explore where I want to establish a base for six months each year (with Bali being home for the other six).

I loved all three cities, and here were some of my highlights.

Buenos Aires

I stayed in Soho Palermo, which is a nice area with a very cool buzz to it. The architecture had a European feel but with more space and fewer people, making it feel less claustrophobic than I often find in Europe. The area comes alive at night and is at its busiest from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. You’re spoilt for choice between the restaurants, cafes, and bars. The Airbnb I stayed in only cost me $310 NZD per week—unbelievable value for what I believe is considered the nicest area.

One of my highlights was how good and cheap the beef is there. My diet was almost entirely fruit and meat. When thinking about a place to live, food comes high up on my priorities. I operate best off a low-carb, high-protein diet, which was so easy to do in South America.

Dining out at restaurants and cafes was expensive, with prices comparable to those in Auckland NZ. The country is currently undergoing a significant regime shift, as the new government, led by Javier Milei, addressing issues caused by previous socialist administrations. Milei has implemented a series of austerity measures aimed at curbing hyperinflation. These seem to be working in some aspects, but time will tell as it must be incredibly tough for locals right now. It’s very interesting to see this play out and hopefully he can turn things around for the country.

I was there for the month of September, and the weather was pretty mint. Besides the odd storm it was mostly sunny days with a crisp breeze. Everyone I met was super nice, and it felt very safe (although I’m told that’s because of the area I was in, which is heavily patrolled by police). I only hit the town once, and from that small glimpse, I got the feeling that the nightlife scene there is epic.

Asuncion

I didn’t know what to expect before coming here. In fact, I’d never even met anyone who had been to Paraguay, including many South Americans. I guess it’s because it’s in the center of South America, without any beaches, and not necessarily a tourist destination.

I stayed in Asunción, in the Recoleta neighborhood. A really nice area that I’m told is very different from the majority of Paraguay. It had everything I needed: nice cafes and restaurants, cheap beef at the supermarkets, lots of greenery, a very safe atmosphere, and a chill vibe.

I stayed in a pretty nice Airbnb for only $450 NZD per week! A 50m2 one-bedroom in a serviced building with a small gym and rooftop pool, only a 5-minute walk from everything.

My reasons for coming here was to obtain the residency but I liked it so much I think I will make it a base for at least a month or two each year. If you’re wondering why Paraguay of all places, check out my mate’s post here who gives a better description of what to expect and details about the residency benefits.

For those of you who have been following my story, you may recall me referencing a Substack that I read back in NZ that triggered me to leave and pursue this adventure. It was called Black Sheep, written by an Aussie bloke my age who I happened to bump into in a cafe in Asunción. Small world! He was also there getting the residency.

My Paraguayan lawyer said she was processing at least one residency every day, and in the cafe where I was working, there was at least one new foreigner there daily doing the same thing. It seems to be the best residency option out there, and I was stoked to find that the country was also great. I doubt that it will be this easy for much longer, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate to hit me up, and I can put you in touch with the right people.

Medellin

Wow, what a place. Every single person who I spoke to before coming to South America who had been said that I have to go to Medellín. Unfortunately, I was only there for two weeks, so I didn’t see much outside of the main tourist spot, El Poblado, but it did not disappoint.

It’s called the city of Eternal Spring, with pleasant weather all year round due to its latitude near the equator and its high altitude within the Aburrá Valley. The lush greenery is spread throughout the city as they have a rule in the district: whenever one tree is chopped down, you are required to plant two more.

In terms of food, it’s like Bali, in that there are so many options, resulting in the quality being so high given how competitive it is. The coffee was hands down the best I’ve ever had and pretty consistent everywhere I went.

Medellin is full of apartments and supposedly the majority being built by the cartel in the 20th century as they were a great way to launder money.

All up it was a very cool place and I can’t wait to go back. The only downside is that it was pretty sketchy. It didn’t take me long to wise up, but it’d pay not to get complacent. I met some cool people while I was there, and I get the feeling that it’s one of those places that becomes even better once you get to know it more.

HOLDING PORTFOLIO & TRADING REVIEW

Below are some snapshots of my portfolio’s performance over the last 10 months (until October 31st). My base currency is USD, so all values are denominated accordingly.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty mental for crypto, which is not covered in the snapshots below because I update transactions & balances monthly. However, going forward, I will be doing a monthly review with performance snapshots and analysis, so you will get the updated version in two weeks.

I’m also starting a YouTube channel where I aim to post bi-weekly videos that will focus more on the shorter-term activity. It will be done in conjunction with this Substack.

Tracking my results, reviewing, and planning my trades is nothing new to me, but I’ve decided to start sharing this with subscribers not only to make better content but also for accountability.

A quick recap on the way I structure things: the majority of my capital is invested in what I call my HOLDING Portfolio for both Crypto and Stocks, where each position is often taken with a 1–9 month outlook. I then also trade Crypto on shorter-term time frames, which I track under my TRADING Portfolio, where I enter positions with a 1-day to 6-week outlook.

CRYPTO TRADING

In February this year, I decided to allocate $28,000 USD from my HOLDING portfolio to trading, which was around 20% of the total value I had deployed in the markets at that time. I was cautious not to overcapitalized, considering I was still early in developing a shorter term strategy and splitting my time with my previous job.

Initially, I kept this balance in cash (USD stablecoin) and would only deploy it when entering a trade. However, given my bullish market outlook, I concluded that holding cash between trades was a waste of capital. I decided it was better to reallocate the majority of that balance back to my HOLDING Portfolio and use leverage (often through perpetual futures) when entering trades.

I continue to track this balance to monitor my trading performance, position sizing, and risk. For instance, if I risk 1% on a trade, that 1% is based on my Trading Portfolio balance, not my total portfolio balance. As my Trading Portfolio grows, I can increase position sizes; conversely, if I hit a losing streak, my sizing will decrease accordingly.

I have journaled every trade I’ve entered through the platform EDGEWONK. It’s an excellent tool for reviewing trades, tracking performance, and identifying leaks in my strategy. As I continue to gather more data over time, it will only become more valuable for refining my approach and optimizing results.

Performance Jan 1st - Oct 31st = = + 46.91% (+ $13,947)

I had a strong start, with gains reaching 60% at one point. However, this was largely due to the crypto market's strong performance at the beginning of the year rather than my strategy. This early success led to overtrading and several losses as the market started trending down.

What isn’t reflected in the chart are the significant paper losses incurred—cases where I was in profit but didn’t close the trade, resulting in the price reverting to my entry point and closing at break-even or a small loss. This often happened because I felt underexposed in my HOLDING Portfolio while waiting for my property sale to go through. I left trades open to maintain market exposure in case of a strong upside. This approach proved costly in a very choppy market over the last six months. Now that I’m fully deployed in my HOLDING Portfolio, I don’t see this as an issue going forward.

My win rate of 23.12% is a lot lower than would like. Out of 173 trades, 40 were winners, 104 were losers, and 29 were break-even. Reviewing this, I see I managed trades and minimized losses fairly well but made mistakes by overtrading and not closing trades when appropriate as explained above.

Overall, I’m still pleased with the performance given the mistakes. It’s also worth noting that I currently have three large open trades currently open and in significant profit however I don’t account for these until I close the trade and realize the gains.

CRYPTO HOLDING PORTFOLIO

This is where the majority of my capital is allocated. My two core bets are in Solana and Bitcoin, while the rest are primarily trades with a 1–9 month outlook. I’m constantly rebalancing, adding, and removing positions, but this approach differs from the short-term trading strategy I’ve mentioned in previous posts. I’ll cover it in more depth in an upcoming video.

You can see like most crypto investors, I ride a lot of volatility. I was also fortunate with the timing of my property sale in September, as my portfolio had retraced back to break-even (from Jan 1) after being up over 80% at one point.

This timing was an absolute gift, allowing me to deploy more capital (as shown by the orange line in the first picture) after feeling underexposed given my bullish outlook.

Performance Jan 1st - Oct 31st = + 30.97% ($68,907)

STOCK HOLDING PORTFOLIO

I started the year with a small portfolio consisting of AYRY (a cannabis stock) and a couple of highly speculative exploration companies. However, I sold these at a loss when I left New Zealand to fund my travels and service my property loans that are all above 6.9%.

When I sold an apartment in September that freed up capital, my initial plan was to deploy all proceeds into crypto. However, two uranium miners (BOE & PDN) that I previously held had returned to prices I thought I’d never see again. The bullish uranium thesis is still very much intact and therefore concluded the risk to reward was too good to pass up at these levels.

Bitcoin miners had also experienced significant drawdowns which often happens after the Bitcoin halvening. I took positions in CLSK and CIFR as Bitcoin Beta plays as they provide more upside when BTC goes up and vice versa when it goes down.

Lastly, I’ve “drunk the TSLA Kool-Aid,” becoming very bullish on one of the most controversial stocks. Many market pundits claim it’s overvalued but I believe it’s just misunderstood as a car company and the autonomy, robotics, and energy are often overlooked.

All of these have performed very well to date putting me back in the green after the losses earlier this year.

Portfolio value is missing the orange line that shows “invested” due to technical issues with Snowball which is the tracking platform I use.

Performance Jan 1st - Oct 31st = + 11.57% ($5,634)

Summary

This crypto bull market is just getting started, and I’m pretty happy with how I’m positioned to capitalize on what I expect will be a wild 12 months ahead.

I’ve been fully deployed since mid September and have only just started taking small profits to fund expenses, however I won’t take out anything meaningful until early January.

As always, there will be significant pullbacks and periods of extreme volatility which I will look to capitalize on. Time to Lockin!

As for my travels, I’ve just arrived in Sri Lanka after a weekend stop in Madrid. I’ll be in South East Asia until March where I will heading back to NZ for a quick visit! I’m undecided on the destination after that.