If you have the patience and expectation for it to break even,
suppose it takes 3 years, the feeling you should / will have at that time is why didnt I put in another 10000 at 250.

So, do you have both or either or neither?
Without both it is not right for one to invest.

I'm not a fan of any particular Robo, I started with SA but they all look the same to me. All you gotta do for now is stay away from Chinese equities and stick to the tried and true ETFs, staying as passive as possible and ride the secular growth stories while braving the headwinds of inflation and stories of war (there has been too many over the years).

Precisely. Free gain around 5-6 % or more from our MYR crash vs USD.

I also had a bump which I couldn’t explain for 5 mins until I remembered the exchange rate.

I’m not a great fan of hedging but it’s definitely enjoyable when it works for us.

(Because it can also just as easily work against us)

this year who +ve I call him super defense turtle aka FI guru.

I mean YoY la. few months, you throw some rock may hit bottom too.

The longest and most stable index is still the SP500. The risk and reward is well documented.
The question you can ask yourself is what is your risk tolerance in the long term. Can you live with the worst case volatility in a short period if you have say 90% of your retirement fund in it?

If not then the better way is to diversify with FI, but if you are young and building your portfolio FI should be covered by your EPF.

At the time you are closer to retirement, when say 60% of your retirement portfolio (which should be considerable, say RM2million) you may not want to expose it to market volatility and end up being 400k short on the day you retire.

So the TLDR is if you're young, just ride it out. If the world ends up in Armageddon no amount of money will be useful. You might as well invest in bullets (this is a real thing).

Everyday you invest, early morning, just look at the mirror and assume ALL your holdings are liquidated by accident, and your broker is giving you free no commission trades to buy whatever you want back.

Then, ask yourself what you want to buy / invest / do with the money.

If suddenly you say I'd rather not invest in Stashaway, then you have the answer.

But the good answers are thus:
1. If I reinvest and it drops more I cannot sleep
2. I found something better, I'm sure of it - then share with us, we can see.
3. I need the money to buy a boat, car, house, pay medical bill, buy food, etc.

He is hardly asking you to double down, just staying invested.

Investing through the high and low tide really teaches you and punches you in the gut guys.
There is no shortcut, it is not always Sunday, you have to wear your swimming trunks, watching paint dry bla bla bla, finding a snowball, ALL of them will become real. They sound like cliche but this is where the wheat and the chafe gets separated.

One has to maintain discipline otherwise you will get harvested. Think about what others have to actually gain by telling you all this for free in a forum.

Its like putting money in your pocket and yet you pour scorn...come on.

But SA really really dropped the ball with KWEB, there is no 2 ways about it. I am not happy they hung on for dear life with such a predictably sour outcome. Now that it dropped further is not a good consolation. And to think that actually the bottom must not be that far off - LOL (ok don't quote me on this one).

The point here is not just about DCA.

It is about having an outlook of investing, that is to keep making your money work for you, not to stand idly by as the world evolves around you.

Investing is just a part of financial and life planning.
1. Always have sufficient insurance - if you have job, 5 years savings, 5 years salary in the bank but need RM1mill for some surgery how? Worse, if you end up not being able to work after getting sick.
1.1 Also remember your dependents.
2. Keep your expenses in check, always have a monthly budget. Deduct your taxes, your dues, and insurance.
3. After that only pay yourself a healthy part of the remainder, example is 20-30-40%. This is the part you use for investing.
4. With the final remainder you spend it on food, rent, house, transport and dependents needs. This is typically last month's credit card bill.
5. If you still have balance then you can think about a car, phone, and regular starbucks, holiday overseas etc.
5.1 If you are damned sure there is a big expense you MUST incur such as a wedding, or incoming baby birth, then decrease 3 until you are sure can cover that also.

With whatever you have in no.3, you can decide how much you want to do Stashaway (diversified equity), direct equity like individual shares, or bonds, or FD or you want to invest in wine, or bottle caps or EPF. But first build up a cash balance of say 6 months worth of expenses.

Don't DCA or invest before you even have a few months worth of expenses in cash. After that you get back on your feet.

Now suppose you do, then question on whether you continue investing is moot, what is 1-5 months worth of DCA in the grand scheme of things. Still, if you don't feel like it there is no harm in NOT DCA'ing if you have no income. Who will blame you?

Another thing to always remember is invest in yourself. You are the greatest money making machine you have. It is important to stay healthy, eat well, exercise. Then increase your capability to generate wealth. Plan out your career that is able to generate income that will make you happy. If your career seems at a dead end, and you are not the cause of that then you can also look beyond the horizon.

As long as you have emergency funds is enough to tide you over till you find another job, that settles it.

The cup is either half empty or half full. In your marathon your first mile is always the hardest, it can even be uphill. But mankind has always moved on, with or without you.

You’re welcome, I worry I get it wrong sometimes and that’s why I share my personal outlook and maybe someone wiser can come in and correct me. If you want even topper advice you can find it here too.

I just share to my younger self as if I have a Time Machine. I’m just talking to my younger self 15-20 years ago. Please excuse this old man if not ngam hear.

Again, to my younger self - when you buy SPY500 or whatever etf you are being a boss of that company. Sometimes it is right for you to question the valuations but to say no due to it dropping is weird, if you had no qualms buying at high.

There are many worse things your friend could’ve punted on….robo etf could be considered some of the safer ones. Worse case lose 50% in short term is as of 2022, “par for course”.

With due respect to many of the guys in here who “top up time reload.jpeg” a lot of them are actually not DCAing and they have a deeper bottom in the their wallets. If you refer to me, then I admit I still have a bit more that I can top up, that I’m trying to gamble a bit by bottom Fishing. In any case we learn and get our ducks in line b4 getting overboard with greed.

Like a song use to say: there is a price to pay for gain, and something to lose along the way. I pray it’s just time for you ! Something along those lines haha.

It is. But we never know when is it that everyone is starting to throw the towel either.

so, the question is always whats next? You keep parking in RM and in USD terms it just gets less and less?

DIY investing? 50k usd is healthy enough to start your own VOO / QQQ / TQQQ / SQQQ / xyzQQQ journey.