Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 24)

Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Sat Jun 21, 2014 6:30 pm

7 Ways to Spring Clean Your Investment Portfolio By Roger Wohlner

Springtime is traditionally a time to clean, renew and refresh. It's also a great time to clean up your investment portfolio. Given where the markets have been in recent years, especially the major gains in 2013, and to an extent some shifts in early 2014, this is a great time to look at doing some (very late) spring cleaning of your investment portfolio.

Here are a few steps to refresh your investment portfolio:


1. Think of your investments as a portfolio versus a series of accounts and holdings. This is the first key step. Many investors focus on each holding and fail to look at the sum of the parts. Or perhaps they allocate their individual retirement account or 401(k) account but don't consider other investments and accounts.

Start with your overall portfolio and determine if you are properly allocated in line with your financial goals and risk tolerance. Ideally, this would all be an extension of your financial plan. Failure to do this can result in taking too little or too much risk and worse: not reaching your financial goals.


2. Organize your various accounts into one portfolio. Make sure that you are receiving statements from all investment and retirement accounts on a regular basis. You may receive them monthly or quarterly, depending upon your custodian and the type of account. Keep them all in a file (paper or electronic or both). I enter all client accounts and holdings into a spreadsheet. I suggest categorizing your portfolio by account and by asset class (large cap, small cap, etc.).

At a minimum, this will show you how well you are diversified across different asset classes. You might also be amazed at the number of individual holdings across all of these accounts. I call this financial clutter. This is common among folks who might have a number of old 401(k) accounts at their former employers.


3. Consolidate accounts where possible. This will make monitoring your portfolio infinitely easier. If you have several IRAs and old 401(k)s from previous employers, look at consolidating them in one place, for example, a single IRA account. When you have a bunch of accounts scattered hither and yon, it is easier to ignore some or all of them.


4. Review your current investment holdings. Have your stocks hit their sell targets? How do your mutual funds and exchange-traded funds compare to their peers? It is important to establish a process to monitor your individual holdings against appropriate benchmarks on a regular basis.


5. Rebalance your portfolio. You may need to buy and sell holdings, or it is possible that you can allocate new investment dollars to do this. Once you have determined that rebalancing is needed, you should get your allocation back in line as soon as possible to ensure that your allocation is consistent with the risk and return targets in your financial plan. Remember, your allocation should be reviewed across all of your various accounts.

In 2013, U.S. equities largely did well. So far in 2014, bonds and real estate have done better than anticipated and even emerging market equities have staged a recent comeback. Overall, your portfolio may look far different than your target asset allocation at this point in time.


6. Don't be afraid to take a loss. All too often investors will want to hang onto an investment that has lost money to allow it to get back to even. In my opinion, this is a horrible idea unless you feel that that particular stock or fund is the best place for your money. If not, bite the bullet, sell the dog and invest the proceeds in another investment you feel has greater potential.


7. Think risk. Depending upon who you listen to, we may be in the middle of one of the greatest bull markets of all time or on the edge of a cliff. I have no idea where we are headed, but we have seen a torrid rise in the markets since early 2009.

At the very least, this is a great time to understand the potential downside risk in your portfolio and to see if this is a level of risk that you are comfortable assuming.


https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/7-way ... 42677.html
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Sun Jul 27, 2014 9:43 am

As of July 27, 2014

Equities: 35% from 28% on June 10 ( Dividend Stocks 10% )
Comment: To trim Equities exposure in the 2nd week of August

AUD Cash: 20% ( No Change from June 10 )
Comment: To continue diversifying SGD exposure into AUD

MYR Cash & Stocks: 35% from 37% on June 10
Comment: To continue increasing my exposure to the MYR from SGD

Gold & Gold Stocks: 4% from 6% on June 10
Comment: Time to increase my exposure to Gold and Silver ?

USD & HKD exposure: 11& from 8% on June 10
Comment: To continue diversifying my SGD exposure into the HKD and US$

Puts & Inverse ETFs: Small Position to have a feel of the market
Comment: No fear yet in the markets
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:51 am

[b]Thirty Second Course on Asset Allocation[/b] by Joshua M Brown

http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2014/0 ... llocation/
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Sat Sep 13, 2014 6:45 am

The Best Asset Allocation for This Market Is…


InvestorPlace provides investment advice to more than 1.5 million individual investors each month.

But our readers also provide valuable information to us, based on what they are trading.

http://investorplace.com/portfolio-puls ... BN2H6Pis-o
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:14 pm

A Basic Idea Very Few Traders Really Understand By Amber Lee Mason

The U.S. dollar just made an extreme move…

And it triggered a series of big changes in many major asset classes.

If you were prepared with our "catastrophe-prevention plan," you're doing just fine. If not, there's something very important… and very basic… you need to understand…

There are two sides to every price.

My colleague Brian Hunt explains it this way: "On one side, you have the product, service, or asset being measured. On the other side, you have your 'measuring unit,' like dollars…"

To understand what's really happening when prices move, you need to understand what's changing on both sides of the trade. Either the product, service, or asset has changed in value… or the "measuring unit" has.

When the measuring unit "zigs," other assets "zag." That "zig-zag" action is the idea behind our "catastrophe-prevention plan." You want to spread your assets around so that when one drops, another will rise.

If you own assets that move with the dollar – like government bonds – and assets that often move opposite the dollar – like stocks and commodities – your portfolio is protected from extreme moves either way. And as I said, the dollar just made an extreme move.

From the end of June through early October, the U.S. dollar index – which measures the value of the dollar against a basket of other currencies – shot up 8.4%. That's an enormous increase for a major currency.

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If you were holding U.S. dollars as your cash allocation, you just made a quick gain. But because there are two sides to every price, the value of many other assets fell…

Gold was down 10% in dollar terms… Silver was down 20%… Copper was down 5%… Oil was down 15%… You get the idea. These commodities are all cheaper relative to the U.S. dollar. You can see it in the chart of the benchmark CRB commodity index below.

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But as commodities fell, other assets remained flat or moved up.

Let's start by looking at stocks… The benchmark S&P 500 index was down a little... But the value of stocks more or less kept pace with the value of the dollar.

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In the meantime, Treasurys moved up. The price of treasury-bond fund TLT just hit a new high. Treasurys are loans made in dollars. If the dollar gets more valuable, the value of the loan increases.

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Growth Stock Wire readers who took my advice to buy TLT in May are up more than 7%. (My DailyWealth Trader readers are up around 19% on this idea with UBT, a double-long Treasury fund.)

Municipal bonds have also seen prices rise. DailyWealth Trader readers own shares of the municipal-bond fund NIO… And we've been collecting big, monthly, tax-free interest payments on those shares. Including the cash payouts, NIO is up around 4% since June 30.

Of course, other factors besides the value of the dollar come into play in all of these markets (interest rates, economic growth, sentiment, and so on). But we know there are two sides to every price. We know that a "zig" in one market often corresponds with a "zag" in another…

And that's exactly what will happen when the dollar falls.

As my colleague Jeff Clark recently told you, the dollar IS going to break down… it can't go up forever.

When that happens, commodities like gold, silver, copper, and oil will soar as they become more expensive relative to the U.S. dollar. Stock prices are harder to predict. But if the dollar falls, bond prices will fall. As the dollar gets less valuable, the value of these loans will decrease.

No matter what happens, you can do well and keep your money safe with our catastrophe-prevention plan: a portfolio that includes many different assets.

The "right" balance is different for everyone. But here's what a sensible portfolio could look like:
• 10% precious metals
• 20% cash
• 20% real estate
• 20% bonds
• 30% stocks

If you haven't already taken a close look at where you've stashed your wealth, you should do it today.

Over the last two months, folks who had money spread around among many different assets weathered conditions many other investors found extraordinarily difficult. And they'll continue to weather them in the months and years ahead – the market always experiences "difficult" periods from time to time.

If you've suffered painful losses over the last couple months, it's never too late to start following our catastrophe-prevention plan.

Source: www.growthstockwire.com
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Wed Oct 15, 2014 6:55 pm

Asset Allocation

By Dr. David Eifrig Jr

Source: Timeless Wealth Ideas


http://stansberryresearch.com/investor- ... llocation/
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Sun Nov 09, 2014 6:48 am

As of Nov 09, 2014

Equities: 34% ( Dividend Stocks 10% )
Comment: To continue trimming exposure to Equities ?

AUD Cash: 22%
Comment: To continue diversifying SGD exposure into AUD ?

MYR Cash & Stocks: 30%
Comment: To continue increasing my exposure to the MYR from SGD ?

Physical Gold & Gold Stocks: 7%
Comment: Time to increase my exposure to Gold and Silver ?

USD & HKD exposure: 25%
Comment: To continue diversifying my SGD exposure into the HKD and US$ ?

Puts & Inverse ETFs: 3%
Comment: No fear yet in the markets ?


Note:-
1. Excluding Retirement Accounts ( mostly Cash ), which means that Cash component is higher
2. Excluding Properties, both Commercial & Residential
3. Excluding Jewelry, which means that Gold component is higher
4. Excluding Loans eg. Mortgage and Car Loans
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Thu Nov 20, 2014 10:54 pm

Asset allocation of Marc Faber:-

1. 25% in Real Estate,
2. 25% in Equities,
3. 25% Cash & Bonds
4. 25% gold.
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Tue Dec 30, 2014 6:40 am

TOL:-

My net exposure to Equities is down to 27% ie. 32% Long and 5% Short.

Out of the 32% Long positions, 15% are in Dividend Stocks.

Therefore, if a crash comes along, I would probably be exposed on about 17% of the portfolio.

And if the crash is a flash one and I'm not able to run in time, I will probably lose about 10% of my portfolio.

Losing 10% of the portfolio is an acceptable risk although it would still hurts.

At this stage of the game, it's all about "Return OF Capital" not "Return ON Capital".

A lot of "experts" have forgotten about 1987, 1997 and 2007. Worst still, they still think that they have another 20 years to ride out a downturn. BTW, the Japanese downturn was for about 20 years.

I would prefer Cash at 1% anytime, compared to any exposure to Junk Bonds, Oil stocks, Commodities, Macau Casinos or Chinese Equities, at this point in time.

Finally, I have no problem if inflation eats away at my Cash as I know that it's for a short term only, while I wait for a good opportunity to deploy the cash.
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Re: Asset Allocation 02 (Aug 13 - Dec 14)

Postby winston » Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:11 pm

The Most Important Factor in Your Retirement Investing Success By Dr. David Eifrig

Asset allocation can seem boring and complex (though it doesn't need to be). And teaching you the right way to do it doesn't make Wall Street any money. That's why you don't ever hear much about it…

But it's the most important factor in your retirement investing success.

Simply put: Asset allocation is how you balance your wealth among stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, commodities, and other investments in your portfolio.

Keeping your wealth stored in a good, diversified mix of assets is the key to avoiding catastrophic losses.

If you keep too much wealth – like 80% of it – in a few stocks and the stock market goes south, you'll suffer badly. If you're heavy in real estate (like many folks were in 2006), you'll be wiped out in a big real estate crash (like many folks were in 2008).

The same goes for any asset… gold, oil, bonds, land, blue-chip stocks, etc.

Source: ETR
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