Tag: profit

StashAway Performance – July 2021

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

Here we go, the second half of 2021 has arrived and it wasn’t too long before we had resolutions and new ideals. There’s only 5 months left for us to actually do anything to plug the gap. For those who actively review their goals and are on par or exceeding it. Keep on pushing, make it count. At the same time, it does seems like it has also passed rather quickly.

StashAway has been rather stagnant but considering the environment, I think it is holding out well. Then again, it is about comparison. If I compare it with my core Robo then it seem to be a tad shy from the performance. Then, they decided with an ERAA approach that has been rather active. Only time will tell if their algorithm makes the right choice and if there is some human involved, I hope it is only minimal.

Repeating to myself that if Mr Market decides to go either way, it would matter that much to me. Why is that so? 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. By now, I would have decide on the main Robo to stake my money with. SA is not quite the one but let’s see how it goes. The competition remains strong.

Retirement Portfolio A (risk-14%)

My longest term portfolio for retirement. A little off on the performance level. I 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 +3.95% as on 4 Aug 2021 (Time-weighted return). Oh well. 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.

 

In USD performance, that’s about +6.90% YTD (Time-weighted return). That’s quite a bit of FX i am losing out here. It dropped a further 0.8% from last month and 0.6% from the previous month. Then again, I wouldn’t sweat on the exchange rates since I am going to stay invested and into these portfolios. They are just a mean of reference as I look back at the performance. So, still high risk high returns? I think it’s more like, higher risk commensurate the higher returns but there is no guarantee.

 

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

This portfolio B is set out to be on a 15-18 year investment horizon. It is at +8.72% YTD on 4 Aug 2021 and It’s steady. It’s the same as the last time i measured during Dec 2020. 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 a -0.6% drop.

 

In USD, I’m looking at double digits +12.09% (Time-weighted returns). Again on the Forex rate as reference. This has dropped almost 1% month on month for 2 consecutive months.

 

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 +15.59% YTD (Time-weighted return) since day one as at 4 Aug 2021 Not much of it has changed or rather it has dropped slightly 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 USD terms, we are looking at +19.90% (Time-weighted return). Looking great as usual. Although I feel that this isn’t exactly the year to take on higher risk for better returns. This has dropped 1.2% month on month for two consecutive months.

 

Conclusion

It is now more than one year 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 second fiddle to my Endowus Portfolio and true enough that fits exactly into how I plan it to be.

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.

Recently, there were even more adjustments to reduce USD equities allocation all together. I’m not sure if this is an ingenious move that will  reap returns in the future but it is take a small hit at the moment. I do hope there isn’t too much of a human factor in these decision.

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 – June 2021

On By RistrettzIn Performance, Personal Finance SeriesLeave a comment

The first half of 2021 has passed by and it wasn’t too long before we had resolutions and new ideals. There’s only 6 months left for us to actually do anything to plug the gap. For those who actively review their goals and are on par or exceeding it. Keep on pushing, make it count. At the same time, it does seems like it has also passed rather quickly. StashAway has been rather stagnant but considering the environment, I think it is holding out well. Then again, it is about comparison. If I compare it with my core Robo then it seem to be a tad shy from the performance.

Repeating to myself that if Mr Market decides to go either way, it would matter that much to me. Why is that so? 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%)

My longest term portfolio for retirement. A little off on the performance level. I 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 +3.87% as on 30 June 2021 (Time-weighted return). Oh well. 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.

 

In USD performance, that’s about +7.26% YTD (Time-weighted return). That’s quite a bit of FX i am losing out here. It dropped about 0.6% from last month. Then again, I wouldn’t sweat on the exchange rates since I am going to stay invested and into these portfolios. They are just a mean of reference as I look back at the performance.

 

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

This portfolio B is set out to be on a 15-18 year investment horizon. It is at +9.42% YTD on 30 June 2021 and It’s steady. It’s the same as the last time i measured during Dec 2020. 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.

 

In USD, I’m looking at double digits +13.28% (Time-weighted returns). Again on the Forex rate as reference. This has dropped almost 1% month on month.

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 +16.74% YTD (Time-weighted return) since day one as at 5 June 2021 Not much of it has changed or rather it has dropped slightly 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.

 

In USD terms, we are looking at +20.87% (Time-weighted return). Looking great as usual. Although I feel that this isn’t exactly the year to take on higher risk for better returns. This has dropped 1.2% month on month.

Conclusion

It is now more than one year 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 second fiddle to my Endowus Portfolio and true enough that fits exactly into how I plan it to be.

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.

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.

AutoWealth – Performance Update & YTD (February 2021)

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

AutoWealth is my long-term portfolio approach. For my child’s portfolio, this is to  add on over time and have a good 20 years horizon. My only gripe is that I cant measure YTD performance. Of course, there is no reason to do that expect for measurement purposes. A time weighted performance is more of an important indicator in my opinion. Just a reminder for myself and on why I chose Autowealth:

Why Autowealth?

My two reasons for doing so is really just (a) try out one more robo advisor/segregate a portfolio for a sole purpose and (b) segregate this fund for any other purpose other than the kid’s investment journey.

Don’t sweat the small things, the costs of robo are so low. We are talking about a 15-20 year horizon here so heck those low costs. You need to pay them to keep their lights running.

Perhaps Auto Wealth is in a different segment all together but they are the ones I see positively after the other two. After signing up in June, I finally got to funding the account in September and October when markets were on the downside. The idea of doing this over the long term is to really to buy in when markets drop.

Markets will go up and each time it drops, just pick some up and let the robots do the work on balancing and re-balancing. As long as fees remains low, the portfolio will grow over time and over a longer period. It should remain in the black based on some back testing. I like it that they have already breakeven so it would be less of a pressure as a company.

As a pretty new kid on the block, it does look like they are one of those companies who keep things lean, mean and transparent for others. Many times, I do not mind paying slightly more for better service or better app/products. I speak for myself though as I do know many who penny pinch and I shall not comment more on this. My philosophy is to never sweat the small stuff – To have bigger dreams, you will have to let go of the small things. No change in Portfolio allocations.

Performance – Feb 2021

Looking at the portfolio, it is pretty expected as the market has been pretty neutral.  My investment horizon would be estimated to be 15-20 years. This is a portfolio which is set at roughly 40% equities and 60% bonds. The investment vehicles will be through ETFs. It does look like it can withstand long term peaks and troughs. What i really like is that i can switch between the SGD and USD currency performance portfolio as well as the impact on USD SGD forex on performance. USD has been steadily increasing versus the SGD.

Overall, since funding to date (in SGD currency) performance is +9.13% and I like this. The impact of USD on SGD is about -2.08% and by referencing the portfolio in USD, absolute return would be at +11.00%. No complaints thus far.

Looking into the details if I were to look at the portfolio value at $5334 (end Dec 2020) versus today at $5457. Some simple and manual YTD calculations below

YTD Performance[($5457-$5334)/$5334] x 100% = +2.30% (YTD 10 March 2021)

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

The pictures were taken from Auto Wealth website for this article. If you need a referral code, drop me a message and you can indicate my full name during registration. From there, both of us will  get $20 each to supplement the fees.

Autowealth Robo Advisors – Performance Dec 2020

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

In my previous post, I introduced Autowealth to supplement my portfolio. This is newly setup for my child’s account. Hopefully, over the long term this will turn out great as well. To repeat on why I chose Autowealth:

Why Autowealth?

My two reasons for doing so is really just (a) try out one more robo advisor and (b) segregate this fund for any other purpose other than the kid’s investment journey.

My take about the investing journey has been the same since day one. Don’t sweat the small things, the costs of robo are so low. We are talking about a 15-20 year horizon here so heck those low costs. You need to pay them to keep their lights running.

Perhaps Auto Wealth is in a different segment all together but they are the ones I see positively after the other two. After signing up in June I finally got to funding the account in September and October when markets were on the downside. The idea of doing this over the long term is to really to buy in when markets drop.

Markets will go up and each time it drops, just pick some up and let the robots do the work on balancing and re-balancing. As long as fees remains low, the portfolio will grow over time and over a longer period. It should remain in the black based on some back testing.

I would say I wouldn’t rate them as aggressive on the marketing front but at 100 million AUM and in the black since 3 years of inception does bode well for them. Looks like they are one of those companies who keep things lean, mean and transparent for others. Many times, I do not mind paying slightly more for better service or better app/products. I speak for myself though as I do know many who penny pinch and I shall not comment more on this. My philosophy is to never sweat the small stuff – To have bigger dreams, you will have to let go of the small things.

Performance – Dec 2020

Looking at the portfolio, it looks pretty nice again in December. The investment horizon would be estimated to be 15-20 years. This is a portfolio which is set at roughly 40% equities and 60% bonds. The investment vehicles will be through ETFs. It does look like it can withstand long term peaks and troughs. What i really like is that i can switch between the SGD and USD currency performance portfolio as well as the impact on USD SGD forex on performance. Again, as time goes by, I would like to deploy funds out into the market in tranches over time.

+7.65% absolute return (SGD currency) is pretty good in my view and this is as at 18 Jan 2021. The impact of USD on SGD is about -3.43% and by referencing the portfolio in USD, absolute return would be at +10.87%. Wow, okay that’s pretty nice for not doing anything after investing.

 

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

The pictures were taken from Auto Wealth website for this article. If you need a referral code, drop me a message and you can indicate my full name during registration. From there, both of us will  get $20 each to supplement the fees.

StashAway – Performance Dec 2020

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

Here comes the late performance report in December 2020 for StashAway. I am still on the risk index of below 20%, split all the risk portion for 3 different portfolio let me understand how I want to do this portfolio going forward. I still maintain that having calculated risk per $ makes more sense in my opinion. It doesn’t mean high risk high rewards although it can give you high rewards.

As I have always preached, the important thing is that I am not left on the sidelines. If Mr Market decides to go either way, it would matter that much to me in my opinion. If Mr Market drops, then I will add on more to the portfolios.

Retirement Portfolio A (risk-14%)

The SRS account since deposit is currently at +3.06% as on 18 Jan 2021 (Time-weighted return). I think this is quite okay as I entered the market at a high before it dropped in March 2020. Performance wise, I think it is decent and also this is a super long term portfolio – I would say close to 25 years horizon so I’ll just leave it there to monitor on the progress.

Education Portfolio B (risk-16%)

This portfolio is set out to be on a 15-18 year investment horizon. It is at 7.61% on 18 Jan 2021 and I think that this is pretty good. I have been averaging in whenever there are market dips. The risk index is at 16% and I will adjust from time to time but try not to touch any of those if you don’t quite understand how that works.

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 14.92% at inception but as  I didn’t take a screen shot on 18 Jan, this is on 22 Jan 2021, Not much of it has changed or rather it has dropped slightly 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.

 

Conclusion

So far StashAway has been a great supplement as a robo advisor. I will try to do more regular updates. I’m not sure if I can do that given things have been rather difficult of late and it has been quite busy at work.

2021 should be a test of time for most portfolios. I believe have rebalancing regularly will be the key.

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 https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

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

Endowus – Performance Sep & Oct 2020

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

I should actually do this regularly on the monthly updates to reflect how effective this portfolio can be. I missed one month of record in Sep 2020 and hence this jumped forward to the Oct 2020 portfolio.

As you can see, the last period of Oct has been a pretty volatile US market which makes diversification much more important. I am beginning to see the benefits of using Endowus as it is a systematic approach. When i initially signed up for this in May 2020, I wanted to see how the CPF portfolio and SRS/Cash portfolio performs. Truth behold, there wasn’t any worries about market dropping off and if I should sell any tickers.

SRS Portfolio

This is definitely up my alley in terms of overall portfolio management as well as long term Core portfolio. Without more talk, let’s take a look at both portfolio. This is the SRS/Cash portfolio which consists of my favourite Dimension Funds in a 40% bonds/60% equity. Overall from May 2020 to 5 Nov 2020, it is a 6.86% increase in absolute terms.

 

CPF Portfolio

For the CPF portfolio, it does not come with the Dimension Funds due to the restrictive nature in what you can invest in but I think this is excellent performance compared with the 2.5% in CPF.

Just simply, 6.66% in absolute returns ever since investments were made in May 2020.

Frankly, initially when I got to know about Endowus it felt like oh gosh another robo-advisor but when I started to listen and understand what they are trying to do, I am beginning to trust that what they are doing is for the good of the community and retail investors. Their fees are arguably one of the lowest in terms of value from the way i see see.

Recently they came up with a SmartFund DIY portfolio which looks really interesting. I would definitely be looking this up when there is a market pullback.

A quick review again:

  • Endowus is the first and only robo-advisor to be approved by the CPF board to use your CPF OA excess funds to invest.
  • 100% trailer fees back to the consumer.
  • Over the months, investment content and market overview has been valuable.

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 https://atomic-temporary-178675883.wpcomstaging.com/contact/

These pictures were taken off Endowus website for reference.

Endowus – August 2020 performance

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

Endowus

Roughly about three months ago, I made the call to go with Endowus to try out the Robo-advisor. I must say that I did and still having a good experience with them. I guess it is time to let people know that they are a dependable and competent group of people whom you can trust your money with. They also have a bunch of good content, the only thing is that their video content always over run but it just means that they have too much to talk about.

They are also one of the first robo-advisors to allow CPF investments into the funds and that tells a lot about this company. Of course, the investment funds that they use to build the portfolio is different for the Cash or SRS options which uses the competent Dimension Funds which used to be only available to institution clients (Meaning big corporate and deep pockets could only access to these funds)

Fund Fees

Now, Dimension Funds are available to retailer clients like anyone else on the street. The problem is that most places actually charge you a trailer fee, platform fee, recurring fee on top of the management fee and upfront fund fees. Yes, it is the financial industry. Endowus actually rebate those fees so that they only charge what they should be charging – the Fund level fees.

Something that  really like – Endowus will only charge you fees at the end of the quarter. Comparing an upfront fee or taking a fee after your portfolio actually returns something. I would choose the latter. Don’t get me wrong, i am agreeable to paying fees and it is necessary to keep good companies running. In general, fees are the ones which keep your investment returns compounded at a lower rate.

When to Invest?

In my previous articles, i discussed about the best time to invest and frankly there isn’t any. To get a head start, the best time is really to plonk in some money to a diversified asset class when the markets have come off. Simplifying things, if you only invest 10% of your Networth each time there is a correction. Doubling the portfolio just means roughly about 9% of your portfolio. (assuming it doubles)  So, it is something worthwhile to think about the risk and rewards. It also doesn’t mean that higher risk will eventually give you a higher return. In all conditions, the nature of things is that by taking a higher risk, you should get a higher return.

Portfolio

I had split up my portfolio into two parts. The first – A S$5000 SRS portfolio invested since May 2020. The second – A S$5500 CPF OA portfolio invested since May 2020 and YTD the returns have been pretty decent.

Figure one below is the SRS portfolio:

1

Figure two below is the CPF OA portfolio:

2

If you use my referral code to sign up and invest minimum S$10k, we both get $20 each which can be used to offset the management fees to keep their lights running: https://endowus.com/invite?code=EDZ8M

Disclaimer

This is not a sponsored post. I will still add on more of my CPF OA money regularly. I will definitely pick up more when markets come off to add on to my portfolio.

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/

These pictures were taken off Endowus website for reference.