The big reason was US's second COVID relief bill was blocked, indicating that more people will suffer from unemployment and a ton of other related issues. Another big worry is the upcoming elections as well as the increase in cases of COVID.

Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/...w3gq-story.html

Usually come in 3 components where they charge you:

1. Sales charge (5-6%, some even double charge you when withdrawal)
2. Annual management fees (for equities usually about 1~2%)
3. Expense ratio (depending on which UT fund)

For UTs, you have to really believe in the fund managers/organization to actively manage your fund to outperform the benchmark/market. Although past performance does not indicate future performance, 70% actively managed fund cant even bear the S&P Composite 1500 (Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lcarrel/2020/0...h=7b792ab947b0).

Stashaway's selling point is taking your trigger finger and emotions of your investment journey, while providing consistent returns. If you were to understand the fundamentals of ETFs (the main vehicle of SA's investments), it was never to beat the market, but more of tracking the market. That's why each ETF has crazy amount of holdings and stakes in so many companies and businesses. With SA, you are not tied to your emotions in terms of what to buy or sell, or react rashly to market news or outcomes, just let it's algorithm do the diversification and balancing, while you consistently DCA into it.

If UTs can outperform SA, hooray great for you, but most of us do not have the time or effort to research on the thousands of UTs out there, comparing the charges, the underlying assets, geographical allocation etc. We just want consistent returns for the future, hence SA.

People should learn that time in the market beats timing the market. Rebalancing and changing your portfolio would mean buying and selling certain ETFs in your portfolio, taking away the potential gains throughout that transaction time period.

Yes it will take time. First the they will have to convert your money to USD, which is what you see now parked in cash. Then they have to execute the buy order, which will take place when the market opens in the US. So most of the time usually you can see money already in but no holdings yet in the morning, then the following day can see the execution of the buy order and your cash will be deducted. I believe the ETFs have no liquidity issues, so almost 100% of the time it will buy the ETFs once US markets are open.

What is the rebate we received in simple? I did not make any deposit in there at all.

It is really up to your own risk appetite. Who can predict when you retire the market will not crash? If you have a 36% portfolio, which are mostly equities, a crash like in 2008 would wipe 50% of your account and takes 2 to 3 years to recover. Can you retirement be delayed for 2-3 years? If you can tolerate the risk for higher returns, sure go ahead. But those returns are only realized when you actually exit.

A lower risk portfolio would no be affected by a crash like 2008 as much, but you pay the price of gains for the peace of mind. Most people here are young, and nowhere near retiring age, that is why they are able to tolerate higher risks. Any crash, give it a few years and it will recover. With SA however, you would also hope that they don't go bankrupt during a crash. I know our monies are held by a trustee, but to claim back that money would take weeks or months too. During a crash where everyone is losing their jobs and everything goes haywire, do you have that time to sacrifice to get back your investments, when you still have to put food on the table?

Diversify your asset classes, diversify your regions, and diversify your platforms of investments.

It would be interesting to see what are SA's allocation during a global market crash haha, imagine having your asset allocation 100% in GLD haha

It's hard to buy the dip through SA cause of fluctuating FX rates, as well as time of execution of buy order.

You can create an account first, and view the weightage of each asset class before creating your first portfolio.

https://www.stashaway.my/how-we-invest

As far as i know, there is no expiry date to your portfolio or your account. You can refer here:
https://www.stashaway.my/faq/115010107968-a...t-log-in-often/

You just pay the management fees based on what how much investments you have with them

The easiest one to point out is that if one of relatives of family member had an accident, and they don't have medical insurance, or their medical insurance rejected/explode.

Or if you have kids and touchwood they turn out to be diabetic and needs insulin shots, or undergo some surgery for birth defects.

Life is filled with uncertainties, and you should always sediakan payung sebelum hujan

I believe some people are still rolling on the free annual management fee by referring other people. I invested for more than 1 year on SA have not started paying management fees yet, plan to take out big chunk once the term ends.

Returns is one thing, but I personally do not like the most aggresive portfolio as well. With a local ETF and Gold and only 60+% exposure to US, it's barely the most aggressive.

There are overlaps, if you look at the underlying ETFs and their holdings. It's just the % allocation different (aka how much money is proportioned into that %). If you want to truly diversify, you should have a portfolio with different asset classes, with different holdings. For example, there's no point holding both SPY and VOO when both of their underlying holdings are SnP500 companies.

Referral code also will automatically show up under promotions, don't have to manually key in promo code. I try to spread out the referrals if possible, to get the longest duration of free management fees (I have less than 30k AUM in SA). If not it will stack the duration with increased limit.

For example: You invite friend A in Jan 2021, they deposit money you get free management fees for 6 months until June 2021 for 30k. In March 2021 you invite friend B they deposit money you get the same benefit also, free management fees for 6 months until Aug 2021 for 30k. BUT for Mar 2021 until June 2021, you got 2 referral stack together, the management fees waiver will be up to 60k AUM for that 3 months.

I am not sure myself if they are able to accommodate your situation. By right is you register using your friend's referral code, and make deposit only both get management fees waiver.

Side note, not too sure how the government will react to this. Will greatly encourage people to invest money on foreign companies instead of going local. We have yet to allow easy and affordable trading of foreign equities in Malaysia is partially to safeguard our own local business anyways. Just curious why it took so long for local brokers (besides banks) to allow trading of foreign equities if not due to political pressure.

It's more or less the same, just 36% has more weightage on KWEB.

Most of the ETFs are duplicated lol, just different allocation.