Foreword:
So this is a pretty crappy time to start a personal finance blog due to the COVID-19 situation. I'd expect to be swimming in a sea of red for the next few months but it is what it is.
Commentary:
All equity investments (except China) took a beating from the COVID-19 situation this month. The China Fund saw green because although it is the current epicenter of the outbreak, situation there has somewhat stabilized.
I did receive my yearly bonus this month so that cushioned the overall investment loss. In fact, it pushed my current equity gain up to +RM5,517 when in fact it should have been a huge negative.
After much deliberation, three (3) major adjustments to the portfolio have been made:
- Quit stock picking and focus on index funds. Hence, all stock positions in Rakuten Trade have been sold and transferred to StashAway.
- Transfer all cash in the Fixed Deposit account to RHB Cash Management Fund 2 to take advantage of slightly higher (0.25%) annual return. Bear in mind that I will also slightly loose out on flexibility as it takes 1 - 2 days to withdraw my money from the Fund as opposed to Fixed Deposit (immediate withdrawal).
- Quit P2P Lending and gradually transfer all repayments to StashAway. I have been investing in P2P Lending for 3 years and the overall returns stands at a horrible -5%. The main issue is although I do make average net 10% annual return per note, one default (which happens quite often) can quickly wipe out all my gains. This really is an equivalent to investing in junk bonds which I only later found out is frowned upon in rational investing.
Forward Strategy:
Despite tough times ahead, I will continue to set my monthly allocated cash into my investment funds, i.e. RM1,500 into FSM Mutual Funds and RM500 into StashAway. If anything, this could be the best time to get into the market.