Month: January 2022

Huat Pals is back

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, Deals, Personal Finance Series, Wealth & HealthLeave a comment

So, Google Pay has reignited Huat Pals and BB Loh is back. For this season, the Panda is the tough one to achieve digitally. On Telegram, plenty of people are just free riding on the free cash  prize without reading or understanding the rules of the game. For some, they are just gaming the system to maximum their probability.

Huat Pals

From 25 January till 15 February 2022, Google Pay users can collect Huat pals each time they complete the following actions on Google Pay:

  1. Making eligible transactions of min. S$5 to merchants via Google Pay. Such transactions include:
    • Tap & Pay (Android Only) or Purchase movie tickets or
    • Order food via Google Pay app
    • Once a day
    • Scan and Pay (via FavePay QR, PayNow SGQR, or a UEN) [Do the 5 times $5 Paynow top up for Singtel Dash app]
  2. Referring new users to Google Pay who make their first qualifying payment of min. S$10 (Once a day)
  3. Gifting Huat pals to friends (5 gift to 5 different users, once a day)

Conclusion

Good luck on collecting the Huat Pals but do it without affecting your mental health. Have fun doing so.

If you need a new Dash account, do use this to sign up to get some perks: https://dash.com.sg/index.php/

If you do not have a Google Pay account, do us this to sign up to get some perks: https://pay.google.com/gp/promo/p_referrals/?referrer_id=t74cf8f

StashAway Performance – Year in review 2021

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

2022 has arrived! 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.  I started out on $1538 and ended the year at $1548, so I made $10 in 2021. Haha….Oh my word. That’s just a 0.65% gain. Talk about flat.

 

Pretty standard outcome.

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

I started out the year for $2705 and ended the year at $3352. Surprisingly, I’m seeing at 23.92% performance in 2021. Every month, I RSP $100 into the portfolio for 6 months until June 2021 so my absolute gain will be $3352-$2705-$600 = $47, that makes a +1.7% gain.

 

In Year 2021, it’s just a small incremental gain.

Education Portfolio C (risk-20%)

I started out the year for $2793 and ended the year at $3511. Surprisingly, I’m seeing at 23.92% performance in 2021. Every month, I RSP $100 into the portfolio for 6 months until June 2021 so my absolute gain will be $3511-$2793-$600 = $47, that makes a +4.2% gain.

 

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 – Year in Review 2021

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

So, I missed out as time did not permit some form of blogging to report December results. It has been a tough tough month so far in terms of work, family and portfolio. It is time for the yearly review since I missed last month’s performance review. For performance 2021, I’m seeing that it will be yet another challenging year again with Covid variants running into the whole scheme of things. Economically, there will be impact regardless of the measures every country attempts.

Belated Happy New Year Everyone.

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 2022 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 but then again, a $100-$200 loss is peanuts. Oh well, we have to take charge of our own decisions. I was greedy for yields and yet not willing to hold for a longer period.

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. If you do feel like I am doing the right thing, please use my referral code. It is win-win for both of us.

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. So, S$1000 is the way to begin.

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. I hope can recover some of the losses but as a function of market related money market funds, I think it will take some time.

I also added another 25k 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. Negative $163.14 and I’ve withdrawn $12K from this disappointing cash portfolio.

 

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. In year 2021, it has performed +13.25%. Sustainable investing has been pretty popular of late.

 

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 +26.59% 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. in 2021, simple return is 13.45% 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 been double digit returns since 2020 (which is almost 2 years)

 

CPF Portfolio

For the CPF portfolio, it is looking at +16.42%% since inception in May 2020. This portfolio is beating my CPF returns every month.

 

In 2021, Simple returns is at 6.69%. Not as great as in 2020 but still good enough to cushion any dips.

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 -0.55% in 2021. This is done monthly on RSP until end of the year. 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.

Some details of my so called diversified portfolio:

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

I got down into building a portfolio of unallocated funds to the institution Pimco GIS Income Fund in 2021. 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 +0.18% (reinvest) in 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. It has been 6 months since I did any additional cash injection.

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.