Month: November 2021

StashAway Performance – Oct 2021

On By RistrettzIn Performance, Personal Finance Series, Robo AdvisorsLeave a comment

The end of 2021 is coming but there is still time. It’s November! Summer is over and fall is coming once more. The festive season is coming but for some it might be a stressful period. The pandemic situation has not taken a turn or twist. It’s not going to be any better going forward. Things will change too for the better. Stay positive.

StashAway has been rather stagnant but considering the environment, I think it is holding out well. SA seems to try to take a bet around China and their recovery by doing a rebalancing. Now, is that system or human driven I question. Shouldn’t it be systematic driven for a robo advisor instead of attempting to drive better returns. With an ERAA approach, these actions seems rather active.

If Mr Market drops, then I will add on more to the portfolios. If you have not taken the first step, action early so that you can start doing this early and learn from any mistakes along the way.

Retirement Portfolio A (risk-14%)

I expected a flat outlook in 2021 and it remains to be.  This portfolio is my longest term portfolio for retirement. I felt that it could have done a lot better but I shall not look back and will pop in a little more when i contribute to my SRS account. The SRS account since first day deposit is currently at +4.35% as at 2 Nov 2021 (Time-weighted return). Performance wise, I think i is okay and also this is a super long term portfolio – I would say close to 25 years horizon so I’ll just leave it there.

 

The YTD performance is just flat. Pretty standard outcome.

 

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

This portfolio B is set out to be on a 15-18 year investment horizon. It is at +9.37% since day 1 as at 2 Nov 2021 and It’s steady. I have been averaging in whenever there are market dips. The risk index is at 16% and I will adjust those risk levels as and when I feel that there is a risk on or off. For just a 2% risk increase, I see a better performance already. This month versus the last was -3%%. Nothing to shout about really other than a poor month.

 

In Year to Date context, it’s just a small incremental gain.

 

Education Portfolio C (risk-20%)

For this portfolio, I look at this at shorter horizon of 12-15 years so I feel that I need to take on some risk to achieve my goals. This SA risk index is currently at 20% and will take on to be one of my riskiest portfolio. Return is at +16.82% YTD (Time-weighted return) since day one as at 2 Nov 2021. As compared to the last month, it is up but this is just a note to self and measure the monthly performance. Over time, more funds will be added to achieve the targeted invested goals. Two consecutive drop in performance for this portfolio In June and July while it is up for August. In September, it has dropped more than 3%, October it is up by 3%.

 

Year to date wise, it is also flat. Nothing exciting. On China’s end, it must have been exciting. In terms of risk, probably SA is dropping much slower than other portfolios since they are designed as such.

 

Conclusion

It is now almost 2 years since I started using StashAway. I still think that it has been a great supplement as a robo advisor. After using a few robo-advisors, I find that SA will play as a competition to my Endowus Portfolio and true enough that fits exactly into how I plan it to be. Recent months, I’ve been thinking and I did not add on any regular monthly investing amount as I’m beginning to think twice about their strategy and if they have grown to a level where institutional belief is starting to take over instead of that pure robo fintech as compared to what they were in 2020.

StashAway does have their own advantages. They do hedge their portfolios against huge crashes and take a stand on some positions which I do like because a lot asset managers don’t and even though they talk big about macro. The gold move was bold but it protects the portfolio. Again, Rome wasn’t built in a day so I guess you need to safeguard some of your monies to future proof it. No one knows so we have to try to know.

To find out more about the pros and cons of using StashAway, do refer to my previous posts.

To sign up or try out Stash Away, visit the website and use my referral code at Stash Away Referral

We’ll both get up to $10,000 SGD managed for free for 6 months which is a good deal.

Disclaimer

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at Referral and Recommendations

The pictures were taken from the Stash Away website for this article.

Endowus Performance Review – Oct 2021

On By RistrettzIn Performance, Personal Finance Series, Robo AdvisorsLeave a comment

October 2021 is finally over – It has been a tough tough month so far in terms of work, family and portfolio. It is time for the monthly review again. Last month was flat as usual but this is very little impact on the portfolio as performance has been stellar since inception. For performance in Oct 2021, I’m seeing some market pull back closer to the end of the month and it is finally showing how it is going to be for current markets.

Portfolio Summary

The whole portfolio seem to be steady and going on a good long term growth. I am quite positive on US equities throughout the rest of 2021 for some reason despite the constant word around hyper inflation news. My cash portfolio isn’t doing too great. On hindsight, I do regret my decision because I thought I can take my liquidity out within 3 months. Now, i have to do it at a loss instead of waiting it out.

Like any other month, I trust Endowus and I would actually recommend them to anyone I know. I know that my investments will be safe with them.  I also read in their newsletter that traditional banks and investing firms are starting to put in monies in the company as part of the drive to stay relevant. The paradigm shift is happening faster than expected.

Lower Investment amount

Whatever it is, they have been quite reasonable about everything. Another plus point is that they have also given me a lot of comfort in the way they allow investors to reduce their initial investing sum. Minimum sum should not be the way to investing. Overall, I feel that I take more pride in knowing who is holding my money and how they do it.

Lowering the bar also allows people who are younger to start early in this long-term process. The other point is what many people are talking about which is the fees. They are probably the only one in the market to rebate trailer fees. I like that bold big move as compared to the other advisors. I will slowly shift my funds over to them. Everyone is different so, you have to try them out first before you decide.

There’s something else which I like about them and that is how they use the power of retail investors to put money into institutional class funds. These funds are accessible only to people with the money and volume to purchase. Yet, they are now available to retail investors.

Cash Fund Ultra Portfolio

I started the ultra portfolio since July 2021 which claims to be around 1.9-2.1% (this went downwards) because I can’t find anything that yields more than 1% interests.

Not sure how this might work out but over the long run, it should be fine. Portfolio is now flat at 0% after a week of negative. This should be fine pretty decent going forward but funds being funds, they will all move on a downtrend.

I also added another 30k into the portfolio as cash injection to yield higher interests but it has been negative since day one and still in negative territory so let’s wait and see how things pan out.

ESG Portfolio

I started this ESG Portfolio during March 2021 and I have some high hopes for this fund to do pretty well. This segment would serve me well for a long term portfolio because I do see the value in investing in sustainable companies an practices. After all, we are trying to make a difference for our little ones. Performance has been stellar. It has pulled back and recovered to +13.98% into the positive territory at +15% during the year. Might consider adding on to this.

The allocation is a 80%/20% Equity/Bond portfolio allocation so there will be more movement on the equity side. This is long term so, just leave it in there. You do good and it brings you sustainable returns. It is for the future and the next generation. I can’t explain more. Maybe it is time for more deployment of cash.

SRS Portfolio

Overall, portfolio is up +25.76% since May 2020 in SGD. As usual, in USD terms, due to no FX impact as the portfolio is USD ETFs, the performance will definitely be better especially when USD becomes stronger. Of course, the reference will be SGD since I use SGD. This is the SRS/Cash portfolio which consists of my favourite Dimension Funds in a 40% bonds/60% equity. Overall from May 2020 to 02 Nov 2021, it is a +25.76% increase in absolute terms – Fantastic once more. This is for the long run. I’m just going to keep it simple to report it overall as I have less time on my hand these days. But do try it out and put out your own performance and tell everyone about the experience. Unless, you nitpick aggressively – I think you will be fine. This has increased +2+% points for the month of Oct.

On the YTD front, I’m looking at +13.14% in 2021. Great news.

CPF Portfolio

For the CPF portfolio, it is looking at +16.77% since inception in May 2020. That’s approximately +1.1% from the previous month in Sep 2021. This portfolio is beating my CPF returns every month.

 

Similar to the previous months, interest rates for cash has been dropping like crazy. That’s pretty expected and the trend is to follow.

 

On the YTD front, it is yielding +6.50% in 2021. Nice recovery.

Fund Smart Portfolio

I started this semi medium term Fund Smart portfolio this month in May 2021. I tried to build a balance portfolio. I’m not exactly sure but I will go in via RSP monthly as I wasn’t sure but I do want to deploy some of my cash. I have put in just a little during the correction and it is at +0.01% to date. This is done monthly on RSP until end of the year. As compared to Sep 2021, the portfolio is flat. I tried to run a mini thematic fund around this fund and diversification is key. Of course, if I had just dumped these into the ESG portfolio from the start, performance would have been much better now.

Overall: 52% Equity and 48% Fixed Income

a. 15% in Multi Asset Fund (1 Fund)

b. 45% in Equity Funds (2 Funds)

i. Focus into China Play [10%]

ii. Global equity with dividend accumulation (Re-invest) [20%]

iii. Small Cap equity play (For the Alpha) [15%]

c. 40% in Bond Funds (3 Funds)

i. Climate Bond Fund Play [20%]

ii. Core Fixed Income Play [20%]

Retirement Portfolio

So last month, I got down into building a portfolio of unallocated funds to the institution Pimco GIS Income Fund. 0.55% will be the fees annually so that’s going to be start of the accumulation of the coupons from the funds. I will add on 2 or 3 tranches of the same should the time allows. Otherwise I would look at the Lion Global fund that matches the S&P 500 Index for a long-term portfolio. Since inception, it is up +0.46% (reinvest) on 2 Nov 2021. We shall see where we are heading towards. I put in another S$10k into the fund in July 2021 and the accumulation is slowly taking place.

I really do need to deploy some cash as I can’t get 2% on cash solutions.

The reason for Endowus

Like a broken recorder, the pros once more:

  • Endowus is the first and only robo-advisor to be approved by the CPF board.
  • 100% trailer fees back to the consumer, not the fund management fee. This is really one of a kind I’ve seen so far.
  • They do have a decent team who makes sense when introducing their platform in my personal opinion.
  • I believe all retail investor should try them out because of how they are trying to disrupt investing and make investing work for everyone.

Thank you all in advance for using my referral code.

Last point is to do your own diligence. What works for me may not work for you. Investing in traditional portfolios is about risk management.

Disclaimer

If you decide to sign up with Endowus, do remember to use my referral code: https://endowus.com/invite?code=EDZ8M

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at Referral and Recommendations

These pictures were taken off Endowus website for reference.