Tag: Finance

StashAway Performance – Mar 2022 Performance

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

Here goes for the March 2022 StashAway performance. Nothing much to shout about.

StashAway has been rather stagnant but considering the environment, I think it is holding out well. I continue to question of this robotic/AI system if it is more human driven. 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. Now, there are more steps taken to actively manage the volatility. I’m not sure if this is the right call.

If Mr Market drops, I’m not sure if I will do this more or do Endowus more. We shall see. I am also not sure of consolidating into one account.

Retirement Portfolio A (risk-14%)

2022 is indeed volatile.  I started out with $1500 and March 2022 ended with me losing -$12.59. Just to put things to perspective,  I made $10 in 2021. Haha….Oh my word. Very Very flat indeed.

Pretty standard outcome and the YTD is definitely down for sure.

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

I started out with a base of $3200 and ended Feb 2022 at $3205.30. Haha, no surprises. Every month, I RSP $100 into the portfolio for 6 months until June 2021 so my absolute gain will be $5.30. Okay, this is holding up okay.

YTD wise, small gain.

 

Education Portfolio C (risk-20%)

I started out with a base of $3200 and ended Feb 2022 at $3342.49. That’s a $142.49 gain! The portfolio strategy was to RSP for 6 months until June 2021 so my that makes a +9.48% gain.

Year to date wise, it is also flat. The Russia Ukraine war is not a good thing for the markets and that is ongoing

 

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 StashAway 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.

One thing for sure is that the cash funds is doing much better than Endowus and looking at SSB. I’m not sure if their cash funds makes any sense now.

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.

Ez-Link deals and promotions

On By RistrettzIn Personal Finance Series1 Comment

You are probably no stranger to Ezlink. Recently, they have been trying to revive hard on their app and card usage and introduced a number of gamification tools on their app. But their marketing is way too quiet, probably because the rewards aren’t that enticing. Nonetheless, it is worth the effort if you have some time around doing this.

From 1 April 2022 to 26 May 2022, you can accumulate EZ-Link points to redeem those vouchers. These are limited by the way so that is first come first served.

Download the Ez Link App, use my promotion click on discover and Trivia. Key in my Referral code: 3197B5C and begin the daily login and daily answer to the questions. The promotion Tier will be:

30 Points: $0.50 Cashback

50 Points: $5 Fairprice Online Voucher

80 Points: $8 Fairprice Online Voucher

130 Points: $1 Cashback

250 Points: $3 Cashback

These cashback that is successfully collected will be credited to your Ez Link wallet.

All right then. Thank you for using my code in advance.

Disclaimer

If you decide to sign up to this, do remember to use my referral code: 3197B5C

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 Ez Link website for reference.

MoneyOwl Performance to date – Feb 2022

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Income, New Ideas, Robo AdvisorsLeave a comment

I have been investing regularly into my MoneyOwl portfolio monthly for some time now. While the amount is nothing to be shout about. It is just regularly fixing something so that I can save and invest at the same time.

This is really a small part of my portfolio at $100 monthly RSP for around two years for now. I may take it all out of StashAway and put it with them or Endowus on any pullback. Maybe I will RSP into ESG or the Lion Global infinity 500. I will decide once I see the situation.

Who is Money Owl?

MoneyOwl is an initative from NTUC Social Enterprise. They are sort of a Robo-advisor coupled with a suite of wealth planning tools such as will writing and insurance solutions. What really attracted me is their rather simple way of investing and using Dimension Funds as part of their portfolio construction. I believed back then I was comparing them versus StashAway. It was only when I found out about Endowus that I went full on robo-advisors.

As a retail investor, you will most likely not be able to access such funds. When the market tanked sometime in Feb 2020, I picked a few Robo-advisor to invest into and look into performance a few months later. Almost 24 months has passed now and I will most likely show some of the performance in my later posts but I must say, by doing nothing much, all advisors reported positive returns as compared to my own stock picking.

One of the reasons I went into MoneyOwl and Endowus initially was because of the Dimensional Fund. These are not readily available to retail investors but the investing landscape has changed. Retail has as much power as one Ultra HNW investor if combined as a whole. Of course, you can still argue that doing 1 ticket size is better than doing one million ticket size.

Summary

My MoneyOwl Portfolio is one that does not hold a lot and it is through regular S$100 crediting. It’s not a lot but as it isn’t my main Robo Portfolio, I am less inclined to put more cash into investments. At the same time, for folk who have just started the investment journey, S$100 is definitely doable for a long long term portfolio. The whole idea of this blog is to also show that it does not take a lot to start building your own retirement pot.

Importantly, personal finance also have to revolve around each individual situation and understand the situation will determine what is required.

On top of the asset that we acquire, there is a need to tweak the insurance coverage due to a new child and an increased mortgage. Should there be any issues that happen to any one of us, at least the full liabilities are covered.

Feb 2022 performance (Since Day One Deposit)

In portfolio terms, it is up +7.2% and compared to my last review in Aug 2021 which was at +18.30% on 2 Sep 2021, it has dipped quite a bit in terms of percentage points. The portfolio size isn’t something great. Just a net deposit of 3,200. I kept the regular investing of $100 per month and it’s looking rather slow. I shall decide if I would want to up that amount soon given that I have quite a bit of commitment in the coming months. 2022 has not been kind to the markets.

 

If we look at Time Weighted Returns, it is the more accurate to account of deposit and withdrawals at +22%. Again, this return is just for reference. At the end of the day, what you originally invest in and the final amount will be the absolute profit.

In terms of the portfolio allocation, there is no change and it is at 60% equities and 40% fixed income. The portfolio consists of 4 different funds. Everything will be on Dimensional Funds. I kind of wished that I had a small cap fund in there. But I guess, as long as my main robo has that exposure that would be good as well on an overall basis.

Personally, I like the allocation % because it is just widely diversified for equities and widely disperse in terms of investment grade.

In the details on the profit and loss sheet:

a. The Global Core Equity Fund will be the largest allocation and makes up most of the returns to date and continues to do well.

b. The Emerging Market Large Cap Fund will be the lowest allocation and makes the least of the returns to date. I don’t mind some EM exposure at this point in time.

c. The Global Core Fixed Income Fund will be my main steady income Fund and finally.

d. The Global Short Term Fixed Income Fund will be the last stabiliser in my portfolio.

e. The government bonds remains to be on the downside which is expected though it recovered a little as compared to the previous month. The impact is negligible.

f. Recently, the russia exposure was mentioned to investors that it was removed and likely due to the sanctions.

MoneyOwl fees

A few months ago, MoneyOwl announced that they have lowered their investment advisory fees as well as absorbing the platform fees due to the pandemic.

a. For asset under management S$100,000 and below, there will be a 0.6% p.a. management fee and 0.5% p.a. for amounts above S$100,000. This amount will be rebated back in the portfolio. So take note that only Cash investments (Wise Income will also incur management fees), the cash management accounts do not have these in place and your total portfolio value has to be above S$50.

b. There is an introduction fee of S$99 which is worth about S$535 for a comprehensive Financial Planning. Money Owl’s advisors will sit down with you to review your portfolio. The review is expected to contain detailed report and recommendations (It is estimated to be around 2 hours). 

c. Additionally, they are introducing free financial resilience workshops to focus on cash flow management and debt management. Likely through Webinars and anyone can join in.

It is nice to see that as a partner to our national social enterprise, they are making moves to help Singaporeans. The reduced fees on investments which is one of the key points in long term investments. The more fees you pay, the more it affects your long term goals.

If you would like to give MoneyOwl a try do remember to use my referral code: 1JIC-91CM

Both of us with get S$20 worth of GrabFood Vouchers for every product or service that you sign up so that means that both of us will get up to S$60 worth of GrabFood Vouchers. (Total of 3 services/products)

Personally, I think that they are decent. A very conservative bunch.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely my own opinion after using their service and/or products. If you like what you are seeing, do remember to check they out and do your diligence. There is no one size fits all investment strategy.

If you would like to give MoneyOwl a try do remember to use my referral code: 1JIC-91CM

Now, if what I am sharing does resonates with you, do use my referral codes here at Referral and Recommendations

If you like what I am sharing or if it resonates with you, do use my referral codes for other services at https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

The pictures were taken from Money Owl’s website for this article.

StashAway Performance – Feb 2022 Performance

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

I am one month late for this but I have to post this so that i can compared the upcoming month in April for the performance review. Honestly speaking, my  Crypto portfolio is moving faster than these stonks haha.

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. Now, there are more steps taken to actively manage the volatility. I’m not sure if this is the right call.

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%)

2022 is indeed volatile.  I started out with $1500 and Feb 2022 ended with me losing -$11. Just to put things to perspective,  I made $10 in 2021. Haha….Oh my word. Talk about paltry. Talk about flat.

 

Pretty standard outcome and the YTD is definitely down for sure.

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

I started out with a base of $3200 and ended Feb 2022 at $3201.15. Haha, no surprises. Every month, I RSP $100 into the portfolio for 6 months until June 2021 so my absolute gain will be $1.15. damn it. Can’t beat inflation.

YTD wise, small gain.

Education Portfolio C (risk-20%)

I started out with a base of $3200 and ended Feb 2022 at $3300.95. That’s a $100.95 gain! The portfolio strategy was to RSP for 6 months until June 2021 so my that makes a +8.48% 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 Stashaway 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. Now, they are taking China out of the equation all together. I don’t really like my returns. When do I exactly buy it at a crash level given all these active management.

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.

Mental well-being and DIY investing

On By RistrettzIn Alternative Investments, Personal Finance Series, Psychology, Wealth & HealthLeave a comment

Today, I’m going to go straight out and talk about Mental well-being and why DIY investing is related to it. Personal Finance is a wide topic. Some people talk about it passionately while other talk about it in monetary terms. If you come across my blog about how I view investing and personal finance. It would always bow down to one thing. You need to look at it long term (30-40-50 years).

My last post was on 15 Jan 2022. It was a new year and new resolutions but who knew that I was hit with reality and I got a little depressed. I’m quite the jovial and joker kind of guy so it is hard to see me depressed for a prolonged period. But I realised that I needed to get away for a short while. While this happened to make myself well a number of events happened and it was all unexpected. After all these has tide over. I found time to talk about this, write it down as a form of content as well.

Many things happen to our lives.

a. Triggering events

This is a wide scope. It can affect family members, jobs, health and other financial events

b. Illness/Sickness that spread from friends to friends and family to family.

This affects family the most. The support from the extended family and who take care of your kids while you grind at work

c. Your own well-being

Of the three items, I find that your own well-being determines who you are and what you want to become. Whether you like it or not, triggering events happens without any warnings. Sickness and illness happens mostly without much time to react. While all these happen, it is important to keep your own spirits up. What you do and say eventually is the outcome of how you treat yourself.

I’m no expert at this but if you do realise you need help. Look for professional help. With the option of working from home, it limits the interaction or distraction with colleagues, friends and family members. It makes one feels inwards towards approaching people. For people who realise it, it is a positive sign. For people who doesn’t, then it makes it tricky.

Now, here comes the key part to this article. When you are down and out, nothing interests you anymore. This includes your own investment portfolio and personal interests. However, there are things that will keep you going (i.e. kids, ferrying the kids, family and etc..) This will make you go at minimum pace. What if this distraction goes on for a year? Often, I hear many friends (Who thinks that they are Warren Buffet and I don’t blame them) say that why pay fees. These are for people who doesn’t know what they are doing.

Let’s look back and ponder on what we just discussed. If you DIY your own investing portfolio and you leave it under the bus for a long time. What will happen to your own portfolio? I will leave the answer to yourself because everyone is different. I’m not saying that paying exorbitant fees is the answer to this. There are many solutions to these and some of these include letting a robo-advisor manage your own portfolio. While you take time to find your own wellness and recover your motivations. No one run their lives in adrenaline until old age. There’s always peak and troughs like every investing period. Pace it out and find things that matter the most to you.

I’ll make this short but will probably do it in a three part format because I really find it important that what if one day (touch wood) something really happens to you. I’m not sure what everyone invests in but I dabble in a bit of a crypto defi and multiple platforms to maximum my exposure and benefits. I’m not sure if my family member can pick up the pieces to recover every cents of my investments should anything happen to me. I’ll remember my own passwords once I see how I algorithmically encrypt it. I can’t say the same for my family members.

Conclusion

Stop sweating on the small stuff. a 0.5% or 1% fee on your portfolio buys you  nothing but a piece of mind. All you need to do is to research for a reliable and honest company that can do the work for you. Review them from time to time to make sure they are still relevant to your own investing philosophies. For star traders who are often right than wrong. Think about the day when your hands doesn’t work quite that fast as your brain is thinking. Income is important to everyone so transfer your risk and sometimes paying a little more works out better.

Till the next blog. Great weekend ahead.

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. This is purely what I write about because I generally have a passion towards learning and spreading personal finance. There is no one size fits all investment strategy. I do not have any affiliation to any robo-advisors or company nor do I get any perks other than a referral fee.

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

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.

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.