Hi all,

Question about SA's conversion rate - I don't like what I'm seeing but I might be wrong in this. Here's a snapshot of my SA transaction history:

The transfer fee was USD37.0581, considering SA's exchange rate displayed there, there was a hidden processing fee of 37.0581 USD.

Now to reverse engineer to find out what was the MYR>USD rate on 3 Aug 2020:
Today (13 Feb), 1MYR = 0.2473718USD
On 3 Aug, 1MYR = 0.2473718 - 0.0047429 = 0.2426289



But of course, I have no way to reverse engineer fintech's or bank's offers so I went to Instarem and TransferWise to check the rates, and plotted them onto my own transfer rate calculator (Special thanks to a forumer who did a sheet like this himself, I made my own copy with some additional functions). Google finance is the benchmark, and the various fintechs are more realistic values:
TW and Instarem:


Excel comparison:

RHS: Today's exchange. I'm taking 27.67 USD as the actual charge incurred for the exchange and put that into 3 Aug sheet (LHS). Meaning, if I did the transfer on 3 Aug instead using TransferWise, I would've receive approx 4825 USD instead. That is 100 USD spread from SA's conversion compared to other fintechs! Did I miss out something or is SA conversion rate really that bad?

inb4 "Why are you trying to reverse engineer this?"
I didn't know what I was doing back then, now I want to know if I should continue keeping my money in SA or take it out to invest manually. Frankly speaking, the performance has been disappointing, and I want to know why.
On top of that, there's a 3+USD conversion back to RM to pay the management fee every month, so shitty conversion rate would really hurt investments in SA.

OR, if anyone is going to make a deposit into SA soon, please do me a favour and compare your post-conversion amount to other fintechs? Thank you!

Ayyyy that was it, thank you! False alarm haha

According to Google's rate was slightly higher at 0.2366865, at least that's a lot closer now.



So it turns out SA in fact has the best conversion rate.

OK just to clarify for the rest, the excel is "actual charge" takes Google's FX rate as a benchmark, then whatever difference from the FX = "additional" amount charged by the fintech.


...Now I'm back to wondering why my account is at a loss even after 6 months in this bullish market. Apparently there's a considerable % invested in gold commodity and it's at a loss. So is it something to do with my risk profile after all?

It was a lump sum (as per the previous screenshots, 20k). My SA risk index is 10% since inception, never changed that, never topped up nor withdrawn. My current portfolio value is RM19889 yes it's a loss
Granted, I lost my referral bonus because I left my account idle for too long before I did anything about it, I lost the 6mo free management fee so there was that minor setback there.

I am consciously holding back from investing any further into SA because the result's been disappointing really... wondering if I can/should do something about it?

Hello, did I just get conveniently excluded from the statistics with my -0.56% TWR/MWR?

Thanks. I do have some long term investment on stocks outside SA, so increasing risk index to focus on equities feels like I'm putting too many eggs into the same basket... or am I wrong to think so? I'm not saying I have eyes on all kinds of industries/sectors, but I'm thinking a market crash would affect every stock out there.
Honestly I was expecting it to perform better than FD or heck, my saving account lol, but I can't bring myself to top up to a portfolio that tells me -0.56% TWR, meanwhile my manual investment is going strong at 15%+

It's hard to think that it was a bad peak when the market right now is better than in Aug 2020. So was I really just unlucky with the AI/whoever working on my account? I'm trying hard to convince myself about SA haha

Thanks everyone, I'll adjust by adding a 36% portfolio and adjust the current's RI, split my funds (with some top-up), and try monthly DCA to both for the year.

The 36% portfolio will serve as my competitor against my own investment to see who wins

I'd say have a good sleep tonight and beyond because it's a long term investment. That, unless you think your portfolio no longer aligns with your risk appetite then you can consider adjusting, however do note that it means SA will then sell some of your current positions (at the current low) and then buy something else according to your adjustment. Adjusting risk index also does not guarantee more profit and/or less losses.

If this makes you feel better, my journey in SA has been in the red since inception at Aug 2020, at RI 10%. I have recently adjusted my portfolio to RI 16% and RI 36% both at 50:50 original amount and the transactions just completed. Guess what, I'm making even more losses because the transactions happened right before the "market correction" everyone has been talking about this week. It is indeed a little frustrating, but what we're doing here is entrusting someone else (SA) to invest for us, meanwhile I/we(?) can't really time the market, so these reds aren't what we can control. Personally, I've already scheduled my monthly DCA, so I'll just try to sit back and let that happen.

How is SA actually managing this small of an amount though?
Take manual investing for instance, RM20 (approx 5 USD) is too small to effectively buy anything except fractional shares, and that's still gonna incur hefty commission fees...

Do you mind sharing a snippet of how the transactions look like? Thank you!

Ah actually I also wanted to know if the buy orders are actually daily, and if yes, that means it was a true daily-basis DCA. I'm just a bit confused because someone mentioned their RM100 was just sitting in their portfolio for weeks(?) and someone said it was probably because the amount was too small, but I didn't keep track of that conversation...

Oh that explains it.... but surely there will be a difference daily, which they'll have to then trade externally, which translates to fees. Wondering if that frequency depends on reaching a certain threshold (hence holding off a day or two until they reach a certain amount needed to trade externally) or 100% daily without fail...

Goes to show how much I didn't know about what I was putting my money into haha. In conclusion, to answer my own questions:
- they have a fixed cutoff time (someone mentioned the pricing accurately reflects 11am market price, I'm going to guess the morning is to do the orders handling, distribution and crossing, so maybe cutoff time is EOD the day before.
- they will never time the market, and will always handle the orders consistently. Safe to assume it's a 100% daily thing.
- customers' orders are bundled, processed then redistributed accordingly, therefore minimising the transactions.

So why did Hoshiyuu's daily DCA have inconsistent buy orders? I'm guessing it's caused by the timing of which the money actually enters his account (i.e. lag between bank and SA). On another note, my first DCA scheduled 28 Feb onwards is still not reflected on both my bank account and SA, as the notice says it can take up to 6 business days for first time, and 1-2 business days beyond.

P.S. bold part: *awkwardly looks at the past few pages*

Hello comrade! Bad timing fellas reporting in. Two profiles here (16 and 36 respectively)




inb4 new investors get scared away by the reds

Hey there, I tried doing your survey but I stopped at page 5 seeing like 50+ questions that require calculations and are mandatory. Sorry, I'm not ready to undertake an exam

Thanks for reminding me that I'm a potato. Indeed I've only started investing last year and boy, it sure feels good to see myself doing so well DIY compared to SA which as I've shared few weeks back, both my SA 16/36 portfolios were at -5-8% losses then. In fact, I'm still very very skeptical against SAMY because I have never seen my portfolio in green since inception, but I am 2 feet deep into it, cannot realise my loss... so ok lor swallow that skepticism and continue DCA... If anything, I'm actually trusting you forumers more than SAMY itself at this point

I guess I'm on the right track that I'm keeping my various jars in tact, no matter how addictive the big green numbers look, don't all in haha. Even lately I had to tell myself I might be saving a bit too much just for the sake of investing.

Ah yes thank you for reminding. Let's just say my current direction is a mix of these:
- indeed I initially jumped into SAMY without doing my homework, but that changed
- I refuse to realise my loss in SAMY lol, just gotta give it a few years to bounce
- for diversification reason, I will not withdraw and put everything into the same basket even if it's making a profit right now

Ohh I still think you gotta do homework to understand SAMY or anything you're getting yourself into. For me back then, I literally heard "SAMY good" and then just dump lump sum in and expected greens. I didn't know about the risk indexes and whatnot, much less about investing in general. Don't underestimate stupidity 😂😂

Else.. well, you could end up doing something you shouldn't like over-tinkering risk index thinking you'll immediately see the effect (read: profits).

What do you mean by core portfolio? The main portfolio that is eligible for the management fee waive from referrals? Well I missed my referral bonus from friend cuz lazy + not actively promoting it so I am paying the fees regularly.... Unfortunately lol. Good thing we're all enjoying BFM promotion code now lesgo greeeeeeen

Yup, I'll be evaluating my own expenses vs saving and how I feel in general now, like mAyBe I'lL BuY thAt GaME aNd SuBscRiBe mOnThlY

Ah... my portfolio was at 10%, started last August. It was in the red for 2 quarters haha. Was 2020 a good year? I guess it wasn't good enough for me lol, I guess bad timing on my lump sum entry, and apparently gold was -20% when I drilled down to check it back then.

So going back to what everyone's been saying, DCA and come back next year lor.

Unrelated(?) question about this way of investing:
I just learned that SA does not allow scheduled deposit into Simple. But from Simple (or wherever, I guess), you can schedule deposit into your portfolios. So, what is the point of having Simple as the intermediate?

Why not just schedule deposit from bank account to the portfolios?

Background on my motive of using Simple: I'm looking for a temporary parking space as I accumulate a sum for DIY investment. I wanted to start a short term scheduled deposit period for that but I can't

Simple not simple at all sounds like the withdrawal takes longer than portfolio investment

Aiya time to do homework on Versa then... I didn't like FD's rate although it's convenient and fast, but I'm starting to feel like penny wise, pound foolish at this rate.

Interesting mention of Akru, now I'm reading the comments there it looks like the service is going down and customers aren't getting answers about their money. Looks sticky

Hey there, we're only few months old but this below shows our battle wounds (view the post to see 2 more casualties). Not "scar" for me yet cuz it's still fresh bloody red.

So yeah, let's give it 2 years or so

This post has been edited by Takudan: Apr 17 2021, 11:43 AM

Hoshiyuu = daily memes
Majority(?) = weekly/biweekly
Me = monthly, at the end of the month

I think a weekly setup would further reduce the market volatility effect on your portfolio, but on a shorter term. I track my budget by months, meanwhile my income is on the near end of month, so I personally need to ensure that I put my investments after my paycheck. Also in case when shit happens, I can pause my investments for the month to reduce outflow. You can argue to move my monthly tracking away from a standard 1-31 but uh... Nah, I'm used to this setup, my brain would struggle to adjust lol

This post has been edited by Takudan: Apr 17 2021, 01:10 PM