What MUST we invest in? How to Invest??

 

Just like religion, there are a lot of different beliefs and schools of thoughts when it comes to investment. Some believe in Equity, others in Government bonds, some swear by property, cryptocurrency, etc. etc. And even within those school of thoughts, there are countless sub-categories to each of them.

For instance, Equity. some believe in picking stocks, some in ETF, then there are method to it, some believe in day trading, long term investing, fundamental analysis, technical analysis. Then for property there are industrial property, residential property,.etc. See what I mean? So many, how can we tell what is the one TRUE 'Religion' in investing.

And the answer is, just like religion, you will have to explore and experience them yourself in order to find one that suits your style, your risk appetite. 

Ok that's that! run along now and go splurge your money on whatever you think is good. Good luck out there.

Yeah, I am not so evil to my readers, see the thing is, there are tons and tons of information on investment out there, and chances are you don't know where to start. Plus, the harsh truth is that 90% of you are going to lose a sum of money when you started dabbling in investing. I know I did make a lot of mistakes, and lost considerable sum of money. 

So really, the best way to start, go and learn from other people, find a teacher, chances are you are going to have to pay money for it, but trust me if you managed to find a good teacher, you will earn back that money easily, think of it as an investment. So come and sign up for my class today, I am offering great discount if you sign up and pay by today, transfer now to enjoy special deals for limited time only!

Just kidding. I am far from being a successful investor... YET! And good job by the way for making it this far reading through all my rambling. Let me share my ongoing experiment on the investment strategies that I have picked, which hopefully give you an inkling of idea of how to start investment and which method suits you best.

My Investment Strategies Experiment

1. Self-managed Portfolio

This is where the bulk of my investment is, I managed my own portfolio which is further divided into 3 different investing method:

• Value Investing - Invests in undervalued great business at good prices
• Swing Trade - Short term trades (weeks) based on Technical Analysis
• Options - Options play (buying/ selling of put/calls)

The performance of my Portfolio is being tracked monthly here 👉 Monthly reports

2. Robo-Investing

Yes. why do it yourself when you can leave it up to the robots to do it for you. AI is the best!

Let me invest for you - Stashaway

Yea I really wish Gundam will be doing my investing. That is an 18m tall life-size movable Gundam being tested in Yokohama, Japan btw. Amazing those japanese.
There are a lot of robo-investors out there, for my Robo-investing I used StashAway. Apply the same concept, I regularly top up the amount every month. Why I choose stashaway? because it was the first one my friend introduce me to, and I was too lazy to compare.
Referall link to get Money managed for free 👉Stashaway

3. Blind Dollar cost Average on ETFs 

This is basically just blindly buying ETFs pegged to the index at monthly regular interval being splits into 2 market (China/HK & US market). No Technical analysis, no reading chart, no trying to time the market. Market at all time high? Buy. Market Crashing? Buy. World War 3? Buy. Just keep buying at regular interval, and enjoy the power of compounding growth. 

Because Index will always:

More details here👉 DCA ETF

4. Passive Dividend Investing (SGX)

This portfolio will consist of investment in SG stock market for the purpose of dividends, mostly on the major Banks and REITS, because that is all SGX is good for. On average we can expect 6%~8% in dividend annually,  cannot really expect much capital gain for SG stocks. Look at the chart comparison between Singapore index vs the banks and vs Reits, i extracted from (https://www.drwealth.com/is-investing-in-the-sti-just-about-buying-banks-and-reits/)

Now you see why I strongly advise against STI ETF?  The best you get is the 4+% dividend and with the capital loss involved, I doubt your portfolio can grow if you focus on STI ETF.

5. Cryptocurrency

Honestly, not a very big fan of cryptocurrency. Still cannot really understand the whole concept of it, No way to calculate it's intrinsic value, and very very volatile. The price is simply determined by supply and demand, not to mention there is limited way to spend it? Then again some seems to believe it is the future of financial. So I guess I will just Dollar cost average either Bitcoin or Ethereum. 

Apparently according to the all-mighty internet, all we need to do is HODL

6. CPF

Not a big fan of CPF, it is my money but I cannot withdraw or manage it the way I want. They do give a compound interest at different tiered amount. 

From the website: "CPF interest is computed monthly. It is then credited to your respective accounts and compounded annually. CPF interest earned in the year will be credited to your CPF accounts by 1 January of the following year." 

I will be including this in part of the experiment just to prove that you shouldn't rely solely on CPF to grow your money. However since CPF interest is only added every year, the % change will only happen yearly.

7. ETF Portfolio (Self managed) *NEW*(Updated Q1 2021)

I will start an ETF portfolio to try and time my entry point instead of doing simple dollar cost averaging at fixed interval

This portfolio will consist mainly of 4 different components:

1. SPY - SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (US Large Caps)
2. QQQ - Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (US Tech Focused)
3. ASHR - Xtrackers Hvst CSI 300 China A-Shs ETF (China A-shares,  large caps)
4. GXC - SPDR S&P China ETF (China/ HK Tech Focused)

 

CONCLUSION

So by now I am sure you are curious which of the methods above are doing better. Fret not, that is the whole idea of this experiment. So to conclude, the best method is... I have no idea, I don't have enough data yet. I regularly track the performance monthly and will be doing a report on each strategy every Quarter. Maybe in a few years I can finally conclude which is the better way to invest. And who knows maybe I can add other methods along the way, please feel free to suggest other investment that I should include in this experiment.

The links of the Quarterly report can be found here 👉Quarterly Report

Hope this will help you be more informed and aid in your decision to which investment path you take. Whatever it is, just make sure your money start working for you, because there will come a day when you will no longer be able to work for money. That much is certain.

Remember Ferry is not a licenced financial advisor so do your own due diligence! Provided data are purely based on historical records and may not guarantee future results. Follow my methods at your own Risk!