2023-07-13 Portfolio update With Margin Disabled, Reverting the Move on 2023-06-23

I am feeling very stupid writing this because it's an admission that I made a mistake and changed my mind merely three weeks after making a decision. On 2023/06/23, I decided to enable margin in the portfolio to get Robinhood Gold membership "for free". I cited many advantages of doing so, but my ultimate main goal was simply the feature that increases the "instant cash" amount that comes from the membership. That feature allows me to make a cash transfer to my account, up to $50k instead of $1k, and immediately invest the cash. While the idea is plausible, afterball, I pretty much enable that feature for free in addition to a buck or two earned each quarter, the execution was so cumbersome that the cognitive load was not worth it. Anyways, here are the reason that I am reverting the decision:

1. On the face value, $60 for a year of the membership is quite a high price to pay for an increase in instant cash capability while each of my cash deposits is between only $1000-$2000 (without the membership, the instant cash amount is $1000), and only done so infrequently (less than once a month, probably just 6 times a year).

2. While earning about $2 per quarter through the interest-free $1000 margin amount is nice, it comes from me taking the risk of relying on $BXMT to keep paying an amount of dividend that exceeds the membership fees after tax.

3. By carrying a margin balance, I lost the ability to earn interest income from cash and stock lending. Not a big amount, but it reduces the attractiveness of the $2 I earn per quarter.

4. I am very hesitant to carry a margin balance. I will use margin as the withdrawal strategy some years later, but definitely not now.

5. Minor nuisance from Robinhood is that it shows the "Buying Power" with my net asset value instead of cash. "Buying Power" is based on the margin limit that I set, which can be pretty high, so it's confusing. When I don't carry a margin balance, "Buying Power" is the same as the cash amount.

I put in $1000 to plug the hole of the margin loan, then canceled the Robinhood Gold membership today. Below is a short snapshot update of my portfolio. An usual complete portfolio update will be done next time I put in money to invest in stocks.

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Portfolio

All-time return:

One-year return:

IRR: +7.22%

SPY approximated IRR: +7.49%

Holdings:

All-time returns for holdings:

Last prices: