Thanks for the sharing the video!

Also, that's a really bold claim, I personally expects 5-10% overall returns at good scenarios, so if you told me a stock or ETF would return 20% or even more, the first thing I do would be walk away from it out of my personal warnings - would you mind sharing? I'm curious now.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 2 2022, 11:11 PM

Cake Defi for child’s play

Real person play options instead

For us ETF is to protect your capital while stocks you stake your skills to win big time

Just look at Tesla stock.. In one year return is 56%.

This year we got hit quite bad. Hence why I said 2 years.



Google 26%



VUAA or CSPX gave 20%+ last year when I check. Early of the year wiped out much gains due to fed announcement. Let's see end of year how much it will rise. VWRA likely give lower around 10-15% a year.

But of course with stocks and ETF you gotta sell before you see the returns. If don't need the money then just hold on. If can keep 5 years or more then will earn even more. Put stop loss (sell at "stop"/"stop limit") if want to cash out in case they drop too much later on, after holding at least one to two years in it.

Not every market can hit 20%. Bursa stocks will be hard. SG market got growth but still not as high as US ETF or stocks.

Articles on this:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/inves...act-economy.asp

https://groww.in/blog/things-to-know-about-us-stock-market

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/27/warren-buff...sed-assets.html

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 3 2022, 11:37 AM

It can be lose big time too so it is always two sides. I see so many investors in other forum complain about their losses on China stocks listed in US stock exchanges. The interest in accessing China A shares and HKEX gaining traction there.

Bogleheads? Has quite strict definition and a lot of investment would be out including mutual fund. Even sector theme ETF are out as they are pursuing low cost index tracking funds and only a few will do. I cannot. How can I eat economy rice with same 3 dishes every day for years? I like noodles actually, rice is just to fill stomach.

Agree. Options is complex and high entry requirement (100 shares and some need margin account). Predict wrong or something unexpected happens then bye bye to earnings. Might need fork out extra cash too.

THOse who are crying losses doesn’t understand how ADRs works which is why they got sucked in by buying it

Always buy something directly related to it rather buying proxy

AS long as you are willing to lose when predict wrong that’s fine but if margin involves then a lot of covering losses instead

Ah, you were referring to single year swings, I've misunderstood, my bad. I thought you were referring to 5+ year averages.

That would imply there exist many investments opportunities out there who will consistently beat the market average over time, and that investing the Boglehead's way is a compromise, to accept a life of poverty and unsatisfied living.

Both are historically false, but who can say for the future? Until the field of mathematical finance prove otherwise, I feel safer not gambling away my hard earned money.

Some oldbirds told me many years ago when I started investment "only invest with monies you can afford to lose" else just stick to bank FD and other lower return but capital guaranteed investment instruments. There is hardly any high returns capital guaranteed instruments and via legal means of cuz.

Many years later that sentence still hold true based on my experience.

So how do bogleheads choose their ETF of choice?

I have limited fund and around 3 or 4 ETFs to invest in.

VUAA, VWRA, SWRD.

My plan is to just invest straight into one of them probably hit the goal then rotate to the other ETFs.

Or can get some advice from sifus here. 👀😬

Some info regarding my portfolio.
SA - RM60k (include simple)
Local burse - RM85k
Soon International ETFs - RM10k

This post has been edited by AthrunIJ: Apr 4 2022, 09:03 AM

That will result in an extremely conservative portfolio wouldn't it?

The goal is to buy the entire haystack, not look for a needle in it that's outperforming.

For classic American Bogleheads, it's simple, the equities part of the portfolio is either VT (~9300 stocks globally, Large,Mid,Small caps by market weight) which auto balances to roughly 60US:40ex-US, or VTI (US total market)+VXUS (ex-US total market) at their preferred ratio.

For us Malaysians, due to withholding tax concerns and that there is no direct VT and VTI+VXUS equivalent, we often buy their Irish-domiciled equivalent ETFs to mimic the portfolio. From there, we decide what kind of coverage we want.

VWRA/VWRD (Recommended):
=Less stock due to missing small caps, but still holds 85% of the invest-able market cap.
+Single ticker portfolio possible
+Overall higher return overtime compared to VT due to 15% withholding tax

VWRD+WSML(Developed countries small caps):
+Covers Global large and mid caps and developed countries small caps
-Lacks emerging market small caps

VWRD+WSML+EIMI(Emerging market all caps):
+Almost fully replicates VT
-Terrible for rebalancing

For me personally, I strongly recommend VWRA and chill - one ticker, 0 rebalance troubles, save transaction cost.
However, I should put out a disclaimer that my actual portfolio is VWRA (80%), AVUV(9%), AVDV(6%), Others (5%) and I do strongly recommend against this portfolio.
AVUV and AVDV are my choices due to Avantis's factor filtered small caps have empirical evidence that it out performs general market-weighted small cap ETFs. They are however US-domiciled, but the re-balancing cost is low and dividends is not much of a concern for small caps stocks.

So that is how I've come to the conclusion to what I hold.

--------

Why I dont hold X:

Stashaway:
Actively managed funds with high fees (0.7% a year for my level), severely underperforms everything, could not commit to their portfolio and high turnover for what is touted as passive investing.
After I've started my DIY portfolio, Stashaway has zero value to me at all angles and I've fully dropped it.

Local bursa:
The notable companies in Bursa is also already included in VWRA.
Furthermore, Bursa has spent the last 20 years trading sideways with 0 improvement, gains come from swings but not overall market growth, political and currency risk threatens it everyday, and a strong, consistent foreign fund outflow meant it's hopeless eventually. Not to mention the trading costs are ironically higher than foreign stocks. Strong pass, I will not waste my time and money here.

VUAA/CSPX/SP500:
Insanely overvalued, too concentrated. Winners rotate and historically speaking, US and ex-US market take turns winning. I'll play on both sides instead of betting US will win forever and maintain my average returns. If I am buying the haystack anyway, why limit myself to only parts of the haystack? And for those who love tech stocks, no AMD, no TSMC, no TencentBaba here.

SWRD:
obsolete in my portfolio due to superior VWRA holdings, and if I buy both, they overlap quite much and will overweight a lot of stocks in my portfolio (VWRA tracks FTSE, SWRD tracks MSCI, it's generally not good to track multiple overlapping indexes).

--------

Finally, fees, fees, fees.
It's very important, so I'll repeat it 3 times.

Every ringgit that doesn't end up in your portfolio is potentially 10 ringgit that has gone into the shitter. This is why everyone should be extremely vary of the percentage based on going cost.
If the market is down bad and returns barely 2% a year, 0.7% (Stashaway) fees will erode your portfolio return to well below 3 month FD rates. And ironically enough, higher cost portfolio almost never give higher returns contrary to popular beliefs.

If you invest RM1000 a month, buying 4 different tickers that cost 2USD per transaction, on top of forex...before you know it, your real invested ringgit amount is only ~RM950 ish. Then when rebalancing is needed, double that cost. You will not be a happy man when you see your IBKR report and commission and cost ate a solid percent out of your yearly returns.

Criticism and discussion welcomed!

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 4 2022, 09:55 AM

O thanks.

I will slowly drop local burse and SA and rotate to the ETFs.

I do love US tech stocks. Probably VUAA & VWRA as a start. 👀 With VWRA higher weightage.

Well, just remember, do it because you truly think it's better for you, not because someone on the internet said so. If a decision does not come from yourself, it's easier to be stricken with doubt when things go sideways.

Holding both VUAA & VWRA would be overweighting US and more than half of VWRA holdings by market cap.

While VUAA represents less than ~5% of VWRA holding, market cap wise VUAA represents ~50% of VWRA holdings.



If that is your intention, then all good, if not, be aware that you will have trouble balancing between VUAA & VWRA when only US large/mega caps drop in value.

I'd personally pick one but not both, and if you plan to go with pure VUAA, hold it and hold it well. If it you can manage to hold it for 30 years, then eventually it should all even out.

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 4 2022, 10:01 AM

Yep, I plan to just invest and forget.

I prefer US stock more. But still can always have other countries stock as investment. Might just check other ETFs that have higher non US weightage. More to read.

Where do you get that pie chart? Can share the link? 😬

What I can tell you is, as of today, there is no VXUS equivalent on Irish-domiciled funds. So your choice do quickly become limited when you want to have multiple tickers in your portfolio but avoid overlapping.

The chart is from ETF Research Center https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php
But US tickers only, you'll have to use similar US funds to simulate your numbers.

It will quickly devolve into a mess when you start having SP500 ETFs, some random SG REITs, a gold ETF from Australia, a handful of VWRA, a pinch of KWEB and TPE... so, be careful, be mindful.

I strongly recommend having an investment policy, limit yourself to only change it every 6 month or ideally 1 year. If it's something you can't hold for 5 years, don't buy it.

Write down what you buy and why, if you can't justify it today, you can't hold it - and when it turns out to be an eye sore a few months down the line - you can refer to it again: "Did the fundamental reason I bought this ticker change? Or am I selling it purely out of spur of emotions?".

This post has been edited by Hoshiyuu: Apr 4 2022, 10:09 AM

For this I will really hold in long term.

As for local burse and SA. Will take time to rotate to ETFs. As I might require the funds soon.

Once all is sorted out. I will only hold a small amount in local burse for dividends while most of it will be on the ETFs.

For now just aim one ETFs and set an amount goal then rotate to get others. Hopefully my funds will increase as I further progress in my career then probably can comfortably buy more ETFs.

As for SG and Gold. Probably not in foreseeable future. Probably when I need to reduce the risk when I am older. Probably just rotate to REITs and some Gold. Now just aim at some growth ETFs.

Hmm, need to read more by end of this month. As have more funds soon. 🤤

This post has been edited by AthrunIJ: Apr 4 2022, 10:17 AM

Good luck! Always get a second and third opinion.

Looking forward to the 10k from EPF myself too. With everyone withdrawing I have less and less confidence in EPF too anyway, might as well take it out and be productive with it...

And forex rate doesn't seem to be on MYR side Soo... 😬

Haha, that's why I keep as little MYR on hand as possible and start looking to earn in non-MYR currencies. MYR is just a depressing currency.