Frequent followers of Mr and Mrs Budget will know that Mr Budget had started a regular savings plan with Syfe, a relatively new roboadvisor in Singapore.
The main reason why Mr Budget decided to go for Roboadvisor is because he is looking for a more affordable way to invest in multiple baskets of ETFs to get more diversification.
Another reason is that, Mr Budget views roboadvisors as the professionally managed portion of his portfolio since he does not have any financial advisor.
As Roboadvisor firms have professionals looking at the funds daily, I’d think the results won’t be that bad as compared to our own DIY portfolios.
So here’s Mr and Mrs Budget’s monthly Syfe portfolio summary.
May 2020
Global Equity Portfolio
Total invested: S$5,572.12
Total Contribution this month: S$0
Current Value: S$5,497.84
Portfolio Return: -1.33%
Downside Risk: 25%
REIT Portfolio
Total invested: S$6,670.01
Total Contribution this month: S$2000
Current Value: S$6,903.46
Portfolio Return: 3.5%
Due to the rebound in market share prices, our Syfe portfolio also staged a rebound in return. Coupled with referral fee bonuses, our global equity portfolio is slowly breaking even, and our REIT portfolio have returned to the positive +3.5% return so far.
We are not too concerned about the returns as we will continue to put in regular contribution to Syfe monthly, and hopefully 5 to 10 years later we will be able to see the returns.
For our REIT portfolio, we may be opting for the full REIT allocation instead of the current REIT + bond allocation as REIT prices have all rebounded back to decent levels the past 1 week.
Will Syfe give us a good return, better than what CPF SA is giving us? Only time will tell. 🙂
You might be interested in previous months update too:
Global Equity:
January 2020: S$2009.00 (-0.25%)
February 2020: S$4248.60 (-6%)
March 2020: S$4918.86 (-11.09%)
April 2020: N/A
May 2020: S$5,497.84 (-1.33%)
REIT+
February 2020: S$3075.90 (-2.35%)
March 2020: S$4333.10 (-6.82%)
April 2020: N/A
May 2020: S$6,903.46 (3.5%)
Based on our records (missing April as we did not contribute to Syfe), the negative performances are now slowly moving into a positive return to our portfolio, so that’s definitely great news.
Looking to invest via Syfe? You can use our referral code: SRP6X8B8Y when you create an account.
We would both get $10 to $100 depending on your first deposit amount, and you’d receive your bonus within 5 business days.
Mr And Mrs Budget 
Used to leave out CPF previously in calculating net worth cos of its so called ‘illiquid’ nature but now I am convinced that at least for the OA and SA Accounts they can be used to plan for retirement. Good job there Mr and Mrs Budget for your disciplined and systemic approach to wealth management. I honestly wished I had known you guys thru this financial blog much earlier. It is sad that schools don’t teach that but I feel having a financial education module doesn’t hurt. Cheers and stay syfe!! 🙂
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Thanks for your kind words John! Honestly everyone is just trying their best to live a slightly more comfortable life and the competition is with ourselves. 🙂 Congrats on starting on ur journey too! Happy to compare notes and discuss anything related to personal finance or life in general! 🙂
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Stumbled across your blog and wish I had seen it sooner. A few questions if I may:
How did you buy an investment property in Malaysia and how’s the return on investment / rental yield? Also, do you take consideration of your mortgage and equity in your home loan into your portfolio valuation?
Please keep up the good work!
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Hi Tomoko,
Thanks for dropping by! That’s a very tough question but will try to answer it.
Qs: How did you buy
> bought the condo at KL based on developer background, rental comparable around the area and did rough back of envelope calculation if the rental can cover the cost of the mortgage. Because the condo is not ready yet, there are no rental yield yet. This was done back 2 years ago and i believe things are very much worse off now since the property market and economy as a whole is bad now. If i could turn back time, i’ll probably not buy Msia properties for investments. Properties as investment assets are not very attractive now as the returns they provide pales in comparison with the stock market / reits.
Qs: do you take consideration of your mortgage and equity in your home loan into your portfolio valuation
> No. reason being there are too many calculations involved – we would have to get the current valuation of the property, minus off the misc cost of the property. on top of that, properties are illiquid asset – i think as long as there are some positive equities on our properties we will treat this as a “bonus injection” to our portfolio value should the day come for us to sell off the properties. So properties to us are really long term asset that we may pass down to our children, or to fund their education. 🙂
For our portfolio, its really consisting of liquid assets (cash, stocks, bonds) and our CPF.
Hope this helps!
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