Roboadvisor: Stashaway vs Syfe

[benlzy]

Yea I'm aware of tt, I wun put in anymore if the 130 is not moving

They are keeping 130 cash out of 200 deposited?? That's like 65% on cash?? Wow. Think you better send them a message as I don't think any of their portfolio has that kind of allocation, even the 5%.

Kinda bumped that Syfe hasn't rebalanced, but based on their latest article it seems like they think this recovery is due to the economy boost by the govt, and remains to be seen if the actual economy will recover after covid.

So if the market does indeed recover, it'll be a kick in syfe's face. But otherwise it's still doing what it set out to do, managing risk over returns. Seems like SA is a lot better for those who have a bigger risk appetite.

 

[blurpandasg2014]

Waiting for Syfe Webinar. Gonna ask them on their stand. They are the only robo that are on defensive

 

[benlzy]

Yea please do, I'll be interested to hear their response as well. Also, they often compare their 15% portfolio against the S&P, or write articles about keeping invested through the downturns, and "if a user had continued to stay invested through, they would have gotten.."

Funny thing is, I'm still staying invested but none of their current portfolio has S&P allocation at all. So what's the point of staying invested, when we aren't there to capture the upside? (often the answer I'm hearing is "we don't care about which asset is being bought or sold, but we just manage the risk to the selected risk level, and let algo do the picking")

 

[blurpandasg2014]

Attended the webinar

Why portfolio 15?

What was mentioned is generally P13-P15 has better Sharpe ratio and have better returns to risk ratio.

While my questions to their strategy in downturn and performance against peers were not answered directly, what Syfe is saying is that their strategy is to keep risk managed;for every 10% lost, a gain of >10% is required to recover

I will continue to post comparisons between syfe and stashaway so you can make a choice on which strategy is right for you

 

[assiak71]

Attended the webinar

Why portfolio 15?

What was mentioned is generally P13-P15 has better Sharpe ratio and have better returns to risk ratio.

While my questions to their strategy in downturn and performance against peers were not answered directly, what Syfe is saying is that their strategy is to keep risk managed;for every 10% lost, a gain of >10% is required to recover

I will continue to post comparisons between syfe and stashaway so you can make a choice on which strategy is right for you

I have requested a few times dont use highest risk for comparison

 

[assiak71]

Fortunately reit+ has a min of 50% for reits, so they cant keep selling to reduce equities

Would like to quote this again. This is why i prefer reit+. No going lower than 50% equities

 

[blurpandasg2014]

I have requested a few times dont use highest risk for comparison

But now is the bad time to switch portfolio for comparison. If really this portfolio combi really CMI, will stop pumping money into it and start another portfolio risk for comparison Will take note of your suggestion. Thank you

 

[zarray]

Hi all,

Syfe 17% DR user here. And would like to share my thoughts based on my limited experience in quantitative research and trying to identify alpha factors.

Right now, all of Syfe's portfolios are nett short position (ie. betting that the market index will go down further).

Syfe uses a variety of bond ETFs in their portfolios namely SHY (least volatile), IEF and TLT(most volatile). They may all be bond ETFs but they are very different in their daily % change characteristics. One could say that TLT performs like a leveraged bond asset. The chart shapes for all bond ETFs look identical. Bonds and sometimes gold are 'safe haven' assets so they are usually (but not always) inversely-corelated with the S&P.

Do note that in the higher risk portfolios(13-25% DR), the bulk of the bond ETFs are in TLT which is the highest volatility bond ETF in Syfe's arsenal. So when the market indices do go down, the capital value of your bonds should go up. DO NOT think of TLT bonds as stable assets!

Nobody can predict where the market will go, but if we look back into historical market crashes, the average peak-to-trough is simply no where near 2 months. The 1998 crash began in July 2000 and only bottomed out in Aug 2002; while the 2008 GFC began in Aug 07 and only bottomed out in Jan 09. From what I've read, the 'dead cat bounce' that we are seeing in the recent mini bull run has happened several times in historical crashes.

So be patient, wait for your bonds to capture the market downside if there is any more.

The tricky and emotional part about investing is one tends to get impatient when things don't go your way. From TS's updates in Page 1, the results are still very much 50/50 so don't get too upset about which platform/strategy is better than the other over the long run.

To other readers: what are your views of the market? Do you think the market bloodbath is over? or do you forsee more bankruptcies and continued loss of consumer confidence?

In investment...the closest thing you can get to a free lunch is diversification. Why not allocate 50/50 to both strategies and rebalance annually?

 

[zarray]

Deposited an extra 200 into syfe 2.5wks ago.. They left 130 as cash up till today

Is it trying to tell us dun bother putting in money?

A small component of cash by % is a buffer for any defensive portfolio allocation. It allows you to dollar cost average as the weightage of your equity+bonds decreases.

 

[assiak71]

Stashaway sent an email on their performance for past 6 mths

So what do the experts here think? For global portfolio which robo is still the preferred choice?

 

[smoothtalker]

Stashaway sent an email on their performance for past 6 mths

So what do the experts here think? For global portfolio which robo is still the preferred choice?

I am guessing Stashaway might eventually emerged as winner base on portfolio returns. For those who are unaware, there is a German robo, Scalable Capital, using similar forward looking Var methodology. If you google it and translate, there are quite a few user reviews talking about the buy high / sell low and missing out on rebounds..

Pardon my ignorance, but looking at blurpandasg comparison, can see that Syfe has been underperforming Stashaway even after the multiple portfolio optimisations done. weird uh..? And during this period StashAway didn’t optimise at all and never exceed the budgeted downside risk..

Only time will tell the truth.. i am a layman I can only guess.

 

[smoothtalker]

But now is the bad time to switch portfolio for comparison. If really this portfolio combi really CMI, will stop pumping money into it and start another portfolio risk for comparison Will take note of your suggestion. Thank you

But then must be same Var then is fair comparison. Sharpe ratio is only one of the many. You can look at sortino ratio also I think is better.

I am wondering if some portfolios have poorer sharpe ratio, ain’t it sort of saying inefficient asset allocation? Hmm

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

I am guessing Stashaway might eventually emerged as winner base on portfolio returns. For those who are unaware, there is a German robo, Scalable Capital, using similar forward looking Var methodology. If you google it and translate, there are quite a few user reviews talking about the buy high / sell low and missing out on rebounds..

Pardon my ignorance, but looking at blurpandasg comparison, can see that Syfe has been underperforming Stashaway even after the multiple portfolio optimisations done. weird uh..? And during this period StashAway didn’t optimise at all and never exceed the budgeted downside risk..

Only time will tell the truth.. i am a layman I can only guess.

We can never tell with such a short time period. That is my issue with all those active trading robos - there is simply no track record of them being an investment product specialist.

Maybe 10-20 years down the road I would regret that I missed out on one of the best investment products in terms of returns, but honestly, so what? There is never a reasonable basis that I could ascertain they would do well long term based on short term returns anyway.

On stashaway returns, there are a few things we need to consider

1. It does not take into account SA's fees
2. Has it taken into account FX charges?
3. Does the return take into account SA holding 1% in cash?

Last point. I would argue that we are taking additional risk by using a untested investment product that is actively managing asset allocation. We should be seeing much higher outperformance, nett of the points above.

Not convinced if they are any good, beyond convenience, which they have done a fantastic job on to be honest.

 

[assiak71]

I wonder if there was a syfe 15% downside risk portfolio but with min 50% equities just like reit+ (or some other number like 40%), how would it have performed.

 

[assiak71]

Those on syfe global for more than 6mths, are you positive already as of 17 Apr? Stashaway's table shows positive for the 6 months from 17 Oct 2019 to 17 April 2020 for all their portfolios

Whats the main differentiator for SA actually. Higher % to gold?

 

[zarray]

I am guessing Stashaway might eventually emerged as winner base on portfolio returns. For those who are unaware, there is a German robo, Scalable Capital, using similar forward looking Var methodology. If you google it and translate, there are quite a few user reviews talking about the buy high / sell low and missing out on rebounds..

Pardon my ignorance, but looking at blurpandasg comparison, can see that Syfe has been underperforming Stashaway even after the multiple portfolio optimisations done. weird uh..? And during this period StashAway didn’t optimise at all and never exceed the budgeted downside risk..

Only time will tell the truth.. i am a layman I can only guess.

No trading bot algorithm can consistently catch these market whiplashes.

A bot designed to capture long-term trends will not catch such short-term whiplashes.
Similarly, a bot designed to catch whiplash trends will do the same sell low / buy high once the overall market trends back to long term growth.

And a bot that tries to track both consistent trends and whiplashes will always lag the market and will always miss out the initial instance where these paradigm shifts in market trend occurs.

 

[zarray]

I wonder if there was a syfe 15% downside risk portfolio but with min 50% equities just like reit+ (or some other number like 40%), how would it have performed.

You can't simply have 15% downside risk and enforce a minimum 50% equities.

If your portfolio consisted of 50% S&P and 50% cash (for simplicity sake) and the value of S&P went down by 50% (just like in 2008 crash). What would your max drawdown be?

 

[assiak71]

You can't simply have 15% downside risk and enforce a minimum 50% equities.

If your portfolio consisted of 50% S&P and 50% cash (for simplicity sake) and the value of S&P went down by 50% (just like in 2008 crash). What would your max drawdown be?

I know what you mean but thats not my point.

My pt is simply whatever DR way of tactical allocation capped at min 50% equities, which is how syfe reit+ is

Or min 2 x DR in equities. The pt is theres a min cap

 

[assiak71]

What can be observed is

Seems like syfe's algo is more kiasi that it has to reduce equities quite significantly. For eg if you look at their portfolios now, their equities % is roughly about the DR %. Isnt that too conservative?

While stashaway did better this time, it can also be said that they are lucky this time.

 

[zarray]

Syfe's ARI is shorting the market. Just my opinion.