SRS Portfolio

[w1rbelw1nd]

I doubt any investment agents like Endowus can be cheap.

It really depends on how you see it. I have made my own lowest TER portfolio on Interactive Brokers and drive my equities portfolio TER to less than 10 basis points.

For SRS and CPF, sorry we cannot invest as freely as cash. Maybe its better for you to invest in REITs or stocks or ES3 using SRS, since it is cheaper?

The DFA funds and PIMCO funds offered are something very different from the off the rack ETFs that can be bought through any stock exchange. I probably wouldnt go with Endowus if I can invest my CPF and SRS as cost efficiently as my cash. And all the more so I am already so disciplined that I dont need to set a RSP to make the investment for me.

Even if it is not as cheap as DIY, it is in my opinion, the next best option. Maybe some will say lionglobal/STI is better, but I rather have a cold hard look at the underlying stuff I am buying. I dont like Lionglobal and STI, so its Endowus.

Hope they get to scale and cut fees though!!

 

[assiak71]

I am holding 0% STI ETFs. Yup 0%, across all my cash, CPF and SRS.

I am sure someone highlighted how undiversified STI is already. But let me do that again. If you are holding STI to IWDA on a ratio of 20:80 for your equity portfolio, you would own more SPH than Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any of those huge companies. Yes SPH, ranked 25 out of 30 of the index, the exact SPH that has been retrenching people and getting screwed by the new media. The same SPH that has also "diversifying" into real estate.

Not to mention the steady replacement of STI counters to REITs. Not to mention SGX facing frequent delisting, and big companies (and potential STI components) passing listing in SGX.

My personal view has always been that the TLCs are terribly uncompetitive relative to their peers. And our dear STI will continue to underperform its peers. Having STI just because its our local index, when there are doubts about its ability to perform, when there is clear poor diversification, is just silly.

I am so glad to have diversified away all my STI exposure (at a loss for my SRS).

I am going with Endowus because they are cheap and also the funds are very very diversified - since they have a value slant to things its good diversification against my usual indexing.

My worry about dfa is it may not even do better than infinity global UT...

 

[assiak71]

Was looking at Endowus.. I choose SRS Fund $10k... at the end the fees quoted was:
Fund-level fees after rebates
0.50%
Endowus Access Fee
0.40%
Total cost per year
0.90%

So is not as cheap as it seems to be?

They are all about this range of fee

E.g. for syfe
- Etf ter 0.15%
- Dividend withholding tax = 1.5% × 0.3 = 0.45% (just using 1.5% as example. No idea what the average yield subjected to wht is.)
- Syfe fee 0.4% (assuming balance >100k)

Total about 1%

What you get for this fee is access to the funds they invest in, their AA, rebalancing, and for stashaway and syfe their algo for tactical AA changes

 

[tangent314]

My approach to SRS is pretty simple and as cheap as anyone can get.

About 90% of it goes into STI ETF. It's not possible to use 100% because you can't always lock down the purchase price and commissions, so approximately 90% is what I am for.

Once the trade cost has been deducted from my SRS account, the remainder goes into Lion Global All Seasons (Growth).

I do the trades twice a year, immediately after the biannual dividends from STI ETF gets distributed into my SRS account.

This way I ensure that my SRS account is empty for most days of the year

 

[undiscern]

Option 7 for me. No worry about fees, collect dividends. Is for the long haul so can hold it. Every year dump 15.3k to buy stocks.

 

[BBCWatcher]

My approach to SRS is pretty simple and as cheap as anyone can get.

About 90% of it goes into STI ETF.

Out of curiosity, which channel (broker) are you using for this part?

Once the trade cost has been deducted from my SRS account, the remainder goes into Lion Global All Seasons (Growth).

POEMS or DollarDex for this one? Or somebody else?

 

[assiak71]

My approach to SRS is pretty simple and as cheap as anyone can get.

About 90% of it goes into STI ETF. It's not possible to use 100% because you can't always lock down the purchase price and commissions, so approximately 90% is what I am for.

Once the trade cost has been deducted from my SRS account, the remainder goes into Lion Global All Seasons (Growth).

I do the trades twice a year, immediately after the biannual dividends from STI ETF gets distributed into my SRS account.

This way I ensure that my SRS account is empty for most days of the year

Whats your overall cash + srs AA?

 

[cal3135]

Looks good

Option 7 for me. No worry about fees, collect dividends. Is for the long haul so can hold it.

🍎xsmax HardwareZone Forums app

 

[tangent314]

Out of curiosity, which channel (broker) are you using for this part?

POEMS or DollarDex for this one? Or somebody else?

DBS Vickers, and POEMS

 

[Han Shot First]

I am going with Endowus because they are cheap and also the funds are very very diversified - since they have a value slant to things its good diversification against my usual indexing.

Why do you believe that "... funds are very very diversified ..." will benefit your investment portfolio?

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously stated that "diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing."

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

Why do you believe that "... funds are very very diversified ..." will benefit your investment portfolio?

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett famously stated that "diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing."

Well the interesting thing is that Warren Buffett also been advocating for index investing. You can google that quite quickly.

Back in February he again highlighted the benefits of indexing.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/buffett-remains-bullish-on-index-fund-investing.html

"Billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC on Monday that Berkshire Hathaway’s chief stock pickers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, have failed to beat the S&P 500."


I hardly think of myself as ignorant, being a CFA charterholder and having worked in investment functions in listed company. But if choosing to diversify is indeed being seen as being ignorant, then I rather be the most ignorant fool out there !

 

[limster]

rant, then I rather be the most ignorant fool out there ![/QUOTE]

I think diversification might mean different things to different people.

For example, in Endowus unit trust portfolio, they have a 100% equity very aggressive portfolio.

Instead of a regular investor who says, puts all his money into First State Dividend Advantage, Endowus puts some in First State, some in Schroder's, and some in Lionglobal, this is diversification?

And if this is diversification, then most investors can also replicate this, because there are no comms for small value purchases of unit trusts. I believe $100 RSP is possible. For ETFs, buying small amounts of multiple ETFs may increase brokerage costs.

What sort of rocket science is involved that I have to pay management fees? Granted they manage to negotiate discount from the fund managers, but that also creates a conflict of interest - you will only prefer funds where you get a discount to management fees, over a 'better fund', that doesn't want to give discounts since the fund knows its good [if you are good, why would you want to give discount]

 

[limster]

diversification is a pretty wide concept. Books like Permanent Portfolio have good chapters on explaining the different types of diversification.

firms like Endowus, which spout MPT catchphrases like "efficient frontier" on their website, are they merely talking about diversifying for the purpose of reaching the "efficient frontier"?(because of costs, they will never hit the efficient frontier of course)

but this implies that none of the unit trusts they are investing in are hitting the efficient frontier by themselves. Does it mean that those unit trusts are defective in some way, and that Endowus somehow corrects their shortcomings by say, combining them together?

 

[doody_]

Diversification is a way of maximizing your returns given an unknown market, since some asset classes go up and some go down. Of course, if you are a fortune teller and know when the market goes up and down, you don't need diversification. Judging by my social circle, people are terrible at fortune telling.

 

[assiak71]

Instead of a regular investor who says, puts all his money into First State Dividend Advantage, Endowus puts some in First State, some in Schroder's, and some in Lionglobal, this is diversification?

I thought you are quite savvy but this......

Btw not to confuse readers. limster was talking about endowus' cpf portfolio. Not to be confused with srs

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

diversification is a pretty wide concept. Books like Permanent Portfolio have good chapters on explaining the different types of diversification.

firms like Endowus, which spout MPT catchphrases like "efficient frontier" on their website, are they merely talking about diversifying for the purpose of reaching the "efficient frontier"?(because of costs, they will never hit the efficient frontier of course)

but this implies that none of the unit trusts they are investing in are hitting the efficient frontier by themselves. Does it mean that those unit trusts are defective in some way, and that Endowus somehow corrects their shortcomings by say, combining them together?

You are thinking too much. They are merely trying to get a globally diversified portfolio with whatever that is available.

Anyway you might be interested to know that they are the only one that can do Vanguard SP 500 (wrapped by Lionglobal). You cannot invest through Poems or FSMOne to get the SP500

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

rant, then I rather be the most ignorant fool out there !

I think diversification might mean different things to different people.

For example, in Endowus unit trust portfolio, they have a 100% equity very aggressive portfolio.

Instead of a regular investor who says, puts all his money into First State Dividend Advantage, Endowus puts some in First State, some in Schroder's, and some in Lionglobal, this is diversification?

And if this is diversification, then most investors can also replicate this, because there are no comms for small value purchases of unit trusts. I believe $100 RSP is possible. For ETFs, buying small amounts of multiple ETFs may increase brokerage costs.

What sort of rocket science is involved that I have to pay management fees? Granted they manage to negotiate discount from the fund managers, but that also creates a conflict of interest - you will only prefer funds where you get a discount to management fees, over a 'better fund', that doesn't want to give discounts since the fund knows its good [if you are good, why would you want to give discount]

The issue is that the existing structure, where POEMS and Ifast and bank RMs/insurance companies have, is the one that is creating the conflict of interest, since they are being paid a trailer fee off the high expense ratios of the unit trusts.

Havent you realise that there is a lack of good, low cost passive product on CPF? My guess is that since the incumbents are only brokerages and salesman, they dont give a damn about the availability of good low cost product on CPF.

Anyway you are already paying for fees through whatever platform you are using, just that it is not transparent to you.

 

[addict951]

Who else like me will be very sad over the next 2 days cos moving $15K into this ‘blackhole’?

 

[yiron]

Who else like me will be very sad over the next 2 days cos moving $15K into this ‘blackhole’?

A bit sian, but then pump in buy MBH also outperforms keeping in high yield savings account...

 

[limster]

Who else like me will be very sad over the next 2 days cos moving $15K into this ‘blackhole’?

This year I put the entire 15300 srs into the hsbc 3 year 2.5% plan as I didn't know what to buy. I am considering a roboadvisor or lionglobal all seasons for future years. Endowus has the expense ratio advantage so it seems to be good though I am still figuring out its allocation strategy.