YTD 2026 Networth tracking thread

[chrisloh65]

There's some advisers who told me before, nowadays debts aren't bad. It can help generate income. Guess its like borrowing to invest in something that returns higher yield that borrowing interest rate? No harm to ask Mr Google.

Lots of cash and lots of debts (excluding the values of properties) is what many property investors face, a happy problem when interest rate is so low like now.

 

[revhappy]

William Bernstein talks about this concept in a podcast that I listened too. He mentions that Lump Sum is better than DCA and VCA. But if you are doing DCA vs VCA, both has issues due to the lack of time in the market compared to Lump Sum. However, if you have to go DCA or VCA, he says VCA hsa a higher of chance of getting lucky if there is a market downturn and allows you to benefit from it more.

This is what I am trying to do but with my own tweaks that fits me.

You can listen to the podcast on Youtube here :

He also talk about the book on Value Averaging. Folks who love Math will love this book. Its available in the National Library.

Thanks for sharing the video. I found out William Bernstein is an investing legend who has written some very nice books. In the past I had read a bit of The intelligent Asset Allocator. But didnt read it fully. I have started reading The four pillars of investing. It sounds very promising and this one I hope to read it fully. Thanks again!

 

[kickass22]

No worries, I am also figuring it out myself. But sorry can you elaborate a bit more may be with an example?
I just did a simulation of 3 plans
1)Constant share count plan. Buy 10 shares every month
2)DCA $1000 every month
3)VAP assume most conservative path of zero returns

The results are quite surprising to me as well. In constant share count plan we dont buy more when prices fall, so we dont gain as much as in case of DCA.

But in VAP, even with conservative value path, we make superior returns than DCA, when there is more volatility.

Now I thought, maybe in an upward trending market DCA is better than VPA because you end up investing less. So I did a simulation for that as well

But surprise surprise, the returns are not worse than DCA even in upward trending market. But the portfolio deployment is lower in this case, I think that is the only downside of VPA if you do very conservative returns approach. So overall I think VPA sounds great, if you like doing a lot of spreadsheet simulations. @Shiny Things @BBCWatcher @limster

Hi Revhappy, sorry for the late reply. Have been kinda busy the last couple of days to respond properly.

In regards to your question, "No worries, I am also figuring it out myself. But sorry can you elaborate a bit more may be with an example?"

Mine is exactly like what you have presented in your VPA example, but I have modified it to fit my simplistic understanding so I use words that are more easier for me. I am also trying to automate some of these and experimenting with it to make sure I got it right.

Please see an example below on how I look it, maybe you can review and provide your feedback.

As mention before, I am also experimenting with a couple of tweaks to see if it works and would love your input and also some other related thoughts.

1. I accumulate monthly at the current moment, so during the month, If the stock price goes below my previous price I will then purchase shares on that day. If it does not, then I will purchase at the price at the end of the month.

2. I have a fixed amount to purchase every month based on the table above, but once my Stock portion of my allocation has reached its target, my thinking is to maintain it at the level. My current thinking is 70/30 or 80/20 which will include my emergency fund & other related needs.

If you read Bernstein and watched his interviews as well Morgan Housel and others like him, they have huge respect for cash on the side ( earning very low interest) and I tend to follow that as well. I guess it lets me sleep well?

This is part of my larger ever changing retirement plan. The stock portion of my retirement plan is meant for the "Wants" and thus the investment period is long. My CPF life (Annuity) portion will be for my core basic needs. I have a couple of other buckets for my kids education, 5 year safety net etc. Constantly changing as I learn more and more on this topic...

4. I was also thinking of there is a big market drop, then I will probably have suspend this as I might need to activate my so called" war chest" and use that during that period. I might need to do another VCA table at that time?

These are my thoughts on these and hopefully they make sense.

 

[kickass22]

Thanks for sharing the video. I found out William Bernstein is an investing legend who has written some very nice books. In the past I had read a bit of The intelligent Asset Allocator. But didnt read it fully. I have started reading The four pillars of investing. It sounds very promising and this one I hope to read it fully. Thanks again!

Yup, that book is awesome to remind you of the basics of investing. If you found that video interesting, you should watch another interview of his with Ben Carlson.

 

[revhappy]

Hi Revhappy, sorry for the late reply. Have been kinda busy the last couple of days to respond properly.

In regards to your question, "No worries, I am also figuring it out myself. But sorry can you elaborate a bit more may be with an example?"

Mine is exactly like what you have presented in your VPA example, but I have modified it to fit my simplistic understanding so I use words that are more easier for me. I am also trying to automate some of these and experimenting with it to make sure I got it right.

Please see an example below on how I look it, maybe you can review and provide your feedback.

As mention before, I am also experimenting with a couple of tweaks to see if it works and would love your input and also some other related thoughts.

1. I accumulate monthly at the current moment, so during the month, If the stock price goes below my previous price I will then purchase shares on that day. If it does not, then I will purchase at the price at the end of the month.

2. I have a fixed amount to purchase every month based on the table above, but once my Stock portion of my allocation has reached its target, my thinking is to maintain it at the level. My current thinking is 70/30 or 80/20 which will include my emergency fund & other related needs.

If you read Bernstein and watched his interviews as well Morgan Housel and others like him, they have huge respect for cash on the side ( earning very low interest) and I tend to follow that as well. I guess it lets me sleep well?

This is part of my larger ever changing retirement plan. The stock portion of my retirement plan is meant for the "Wants" and thus the investment period is long. My CPF life (Annuity) portion will be for my core basic needs. I have a couple of other buckets for my kids education, 5 year safety net etc. Constantly changing as I learn more and more on this topic...

4. I was also thinking of there is a big market drop, then I will probably have suspend this as I might need to activate my so called" war chest" and use that during that period. I might need to do another VCA table at that time?

These are my thoughts on these and hopefully they make sense.

Your plan sounds exactly like the value average plan is very good.
You can see this thread in bogleheads about a guy's experience with value averaging during the 2008 crash:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=150781
I think value averaging works even during big market drops, except that it is possible that you run out of cash trying to maintain the same growth rate. I also agree with you about the minimum amount of safe bonds/cash that I would like to have, that no matter what I dont want to go below a particular threshold. My value averaging path is actually quite conservative. I expect to invest mostly new savings +accruals from my bond fund portfolio and in normal circumstances, my bond fund absolute level shouldnt deplete beyond 5% per year. Only in case of sharp market declines I would let my bond fund deplete, but the limit I have set is 25% depletion. If that happens, I just stop at that point.

 

[yuzu28]

May I know for those who have fixed income investment in your portfolio (excl property rental), do u classify
1) equities / bonds that pay yearly / half yearly / quarterly as fixed income category?
2) Or u only take into consideration of fixed income funds that pay monthly dividend?
3) both?

 

[revhappy]

May I know for those who have fixed income investment in your portfolio (excl property rental), do u classify
1) equities / bonds that pay yearly / half yearly / quarterly as fixed income category?
2) Or u only take into consideration of fixed income funds that pay monthly dividend?
3) both?

Fixed income is just another name for bonds and fixed deposits. So basically products that pay you a promised coupon or interest at regular intervals.

Equities is the opposite of fixed income, where there is no promise of dividend payment.

 

[yuzu28]

Fixed income is just another name for bonds and fixed deposits. So basically products that pay you a promised coupon or interest at regular intervals.

Equities is the opposite of fixed income, where there is no promise of dividend payment.

Fixed income mutual funds can consider under this category?
Cos I'm trying to categorise my stuff and set some small targets.

 

[revhappy]

Fixed income mutual funds can consider under this category?
Cos I'm trying to categorise my stuff and set some small targets.

If you see FSM fund selector, under asset class, they have Fixed Income, which is almost their entire bond fund universe. They have money market and short duration bond funds seperated out.

https://www.fundsupermart.com/fsm/funds/fund-selector
So that is the industry definition. For your own categorization, it depends on what is your aim. Although bond funds are called fixed income, depending on their credit risk and duration risk, their price can fluctuate a lot and the bond funds are different from holding a bond directly. The fund manager may decide to reinvest the coupons paid by the bonds or if the yields rise a lot and the price falls, paying out coupons will make it look like the performance was bad, so the fund manager may reinvest and not pay out coupons.

If you believe in index funds, then MBH is already considered as a good ETF for your bond component, it has a decent yield to maturity of 2.28%, so you should get around that as annual dividend
https://www.nikkoam.com.sg/files/documents/funds/fact_sheet/sgd_ig_corp_bd_etf_fs.pdf

 

[Perisher]

Simpler way to Rebalance is every Feb and August sell some... usually will have some correction in April-May and Sept, so buy every June and October. Just basing it off these past years stats. Dyodd.

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/monthly_returns.htm
From the results, it looks like some months really are significantly better than average. November through January is a particularly strong stretch; and September is the "danger" month, with an overall negative return. Surprisingly, October shows positive returns on average, although October 1987 and 2008 were pretty hard to forget.

Note that December has been better than January, which contradicts two popular myths: the December Selloff, and the January Effect.

But also notice that there are lots of exceptions to the pattern. There have been bad Januaries, and great Septembers. And of course the biggest trend of all is that the market goes up over time. So maybe the lesson here is the usual one, that long-term buy and hold is the winning strategy.

 

[kickass22]

You can see this thread in bogleheads about a guy's experience with value averaging during the 2008 crash:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=150781

Thanks for the thread. Good read and helps in my planning.

 

[hwmook]

Networth as of 29/05/2021 -> 1.2m SGD

All figures is SGD '000
YTD investment growth -> 6.75%
YTD networth growth(including new salary savings inflow) -> 11.05%

End of the month already, never update in this thread?

My overall networth is now over 1.9m with investment portfolio over 1.27m.

 

[wutawa]

End of the month already, never update in this thread?

My overall networth is now over 1.9m with investment portfolio over 1.27m.

what is your jul % gain in investment?

 

[skpuppy]

what is your jul % gain in investment?

I read about this value averaging thing vs DCA. Very Chim lei. Anyway to understand a bit better?

 

[skpuppy]

End of the month already, never update in this thread?

My overall networth is now over 1.9m with investment portfolio over 1.27m.

Damn powerful! $600k is cash. My idol. If you are in your 30s, damn successful and can retire already

 

[hwmook]

Damn powerful! $600k is cash. My idol. If you are in your 30s, damn successful and can retire already

$630k is CPF and property. Only 1.27m can be cash out. I am late 30s. My target retirement age is 55 so still got some years to go.

 

[highsulphur]

End of the month already, never update in this thread?

My overall networth is now over 1.9m with investment portfolio over 1.27m.

Used to update every month. Then reduce to quarterly.

Now just twice a year

 

[hwmook]

what is your jul % gain in investment?

Never track until so detailed, YTD 15% gain.

 

[highsulphur]

Never track until so detailed, YTD 15% gain.

Nice. Mine networth excluding property is up only around 10% for 1H and that includes salary and bonus

 

[wutawa]

my net worth +3.72% in jul, +19.72% ytd. i am expecting aug to crash.