Stashaway is designed for folks like you, but the advise from MUM is extremely relevant.

You must know what you are buying which is a split basket of ETFs comprising of index funds, and usually some Gold.

Now once you know you are indexing, in a way you need to accept that it goes up and down according to the market of the fund you are buying. And if you know that then you also know that once in a while something bad happens and it can even drop 10-20% in a year, or even slightly more. THat means that in the absence of something catastrophic anything else can cause drops of 1-9% without too much "reason".

You also need to know that generally markets tend to go up over time.

You'd be buying at the peak of this giant bubble of everything. If I told you I had a crystal ball and could foresee the market crashing 30% next month, would you still deposit all or would you change your mind?

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, would you be able to deal with the volatility in order to get that 'potential' gains in the future.

Theory is one thing, actually experiencing it is another.

This post has been edited by cucumber: Jun 9 2021, 11:19 PM

is the portfolio automatically recommend by StashAway (base on risk assessment) or I have to choose ?
Can I change the risk assessment and / or portfolio once everything is set up ?

Thanks

thanks for the info
"what you are buying" - is this recommended by StashAway base on risk assessment or I have to decide my self ?

unknown about your risk appetite and your risk capacity and your "hand on experience" about investing .....i think you will have to decide by yourself......

As long as you multiple portfolios you have to allocate the amount you desired to each portfolios otherwise if it is a single portfolio all will go into it whether automated or manual deposit as it will prompt you when you start deposit

Portfolio is recommended by the robo but you have the choice to choose which one you are comfortable with ranging from 6.5 to 36% risk

Risk assessment is for SA robo to recommend which portfolio unless you choose goal setting portfolio which are usually 22% or below

1stly you need to understand that SA is asset allocator which every portfolio buy into ETFs, Bonds or Fixed Income and Gold for inflation hedge and 1% cash to cover your monthly fees if applicable

Stashaway do not have nomination feature like epf. So in time of untimely demise, the family will have to claim through will and lawyer?

i have a question:

IF the portfolio allocations of SA is fixed anyway and there is no AI involved, one can easily use the same portfolio and buy in directly into the ETFs yourself and save the SA charges?

My spouse knows of the passwords to my banks n investment a/c..
Accessing them and transferring it online would be faster than waiting for the processing of will route

Will the rate of exchange or the cost of buying those etfs be a concern?

StashAway is like most private investment vehicles (stocks, mutual funds etc.) in that you cannot nominate directly the way you can do with EPF which is government incentive and meant to be a retirement fund (exception is PRS funds which are also government incentive, just that it's managed by private investment fund houses)

You need to specify in your will/wasiat about any investments and assets you own. Otherwise StashAway is unable to release money to your beneficiary: https://www.stashaway.my/faq/900001773963-w...er-passes-away/

Good points. We may gain in the Forex with SA. Seems their rates are pretty good.
As for ETF trading, it is the brokerage charges.

Since SA would be buying in bigger amount than us,... Maybe they get lower brokerage charges than us?

Well technical yes except diy need quite some efforts. Also stashway will also rebalance and reoptimized. Key part is the re-optimized which involve selling over-priced etf and buy some etf that were deemed under-valued by stashaway. The timing that they perform that was hard to be mimicked.

Then u will not will need the will as it may clash in the distribution.

Thanks for the insights.

This post has been edited by akhito: Jun 10 2021, 09:48 AM

Potentially, but some problems:

1) Cannot buy fractional shares the way that StashAway can, so it gets very expensive very quickly unless you're loaded.
2) It's very tricky and expensive to balance and manage weights for so many different ETFs on your own, unless you're experienced, as you're juggling easily more than 7 ETFs
3) Exchange rates for currency and other potential fees might not work in your favor, which may negate any gains you get from not needing to pay fees to SAMY
4) SAMY reoptimises their portfolio every now and then which increases the cost and hassle because you'd need to buy+sell the relevant ETFs

Self buy ETF is probably only good for lump sum strategy with large capital, but loses out on flexibility of reoptimising.

If you want similar diversification but DIY it's better to follow Bogleheads' strategy of 2-4 fund portfolios.

This post has been edited by DragonReine: Jun 10 2021, 09:49 AM

For my other assets...

Yes. i should think so.

But optimisation and rebalancing is very rare.

Some good pints here.

I will be the devil's advocate. So not saying you are wrong.

1)We can buy fractional or rather small units shares of US based ETFs easily. You can buy ONE share. Of course there is minimum brokerage fees.
Yes. Some of these ETFs may be beyond the reach of many for DCA strategy.
2)SA does not do rebalancing so often. So not a real issue.
3) SA wins on forex i think.
4) Re optimising is quite rare AFAIK? Same as rebalancing.

i do have my porftfolio of dividend yielding stocks. Only about 15 to 20 at a time.

👍🏻 Good points, but I do consider that if a person has the financial capability and the knowledge+confidence required to attempt or seriously consider DIY, they're already not suited for SA and not SA's (and most robo advisors) target audience, which are investors with low investing capital and who don't have the time/capability/confidence to DIY invest and manage their own portfolio.

SA to me is autopilot investing, which comes with its own pros (low barrier to entry, little need to manage and track portfolio) and cons (no control, paying fees accumulates), so it depends on the investor's needs and investing strategy whether SA or DIY it's better.

This post has been edited by DragonReine: Jun 10 2021, 10:11 AM