I stayed up late tonight to write this post because it’s been an eventful day and night of investing. In the past 2 weeks, I have invested about S$30,000 into the markets. And I was getting myself ready to increase the amount to be invested if the markets continued to drop. I didn’t think this would happen so quickly.
Just 2 days after writing my last post, there was another significant fall in the markets. Even bigger than the previous one. I had already planned for this so I invested another S$70,000 into the markets. Which concludes Phase 1 Round 2 for me as my 1st batch of S$100,000 has been utilised. Through manual investments of mostly ETFs and some stocks as well as funds transfers into my robo-advisor accounts.
The speed of the fall in the markets did catch me by surprise because I thought it will take a few weeks for such a significant drop to happen. I was only planning to invest another S$40,000 into the markets. But decided to go ahead with the additional S$30,000 because the falling price levels kept triggering my investment actions.
It’s not a bad thing for me when the markets are accelerating their falls. Because the job cuts have yet to happen. Which means as long as I can stay employed, my cash position can continue to be replenished. So I can continue to invest every month without worrying about drawing down the cash balance by too much over time.
Speaking of job cuts, I heard news in the pipeline that contract staff in my bank are having their contracts shortened from 1 year to 6 months. And some of their contracts are not being renewed. This always happens in every recession at a bank. Contract staff are usually the first to go. This is why I don’t go for contract roles even if they pay more than permanent roles.
I have a more long term view of my career in mind. Because I still believe only staff in permanent roles will end up getting the professional and personal development necessary to progress up the ranks. To get that bigger payoff in salary and bonus at a later stage. I just have to accept that I might lose out at the start and try to catch up & even exceed eventually.
Anyway, my 1st batch of S$100,000 has been invested into the markets. My cash allocation in the asset portfolio has gone down from 50% to 40%. While my equities allocation has gone up from 10% to 20%. It’s now a more evenly distributed asset portfolio, which better positions me for Stage 2 Round 1.
From here, I will be tapping into my 2nd batch of S$100,000 to be invested into the markets. I don’t think the speed of utilisation for this 2nd batch will be as quick as the 1st batch. At some point, the markets are going to hit a resistance level. When the deteriorating financial markets actually have to wait for the real economy to get worse to catch up. Before it continues to fall.
Or the real economy actually improves over time and things are not as bad as they seem. At which point the financial markets will rebound since they have been over sold. It’s difficult to make a call at this time but I have to be patient. With every month I stay employed, my job provides me with enough salary income to take another shot at the markets. And everything becomes clearer with time so I just have to wait and stick to my strategy.
Wah your bullets very big!!! envious haha
Haha, it took a long time to accumulate this amount of investment cash. And I had to stay out of the markets for a few years with the bulk of it in deposit accounts even though I was Dollar Cost Averaging into ETFs and robo-advisors every month. I’m still not sure whether it will pay off to have lost out on returns from the market by not investing. That might only happen if the markets drop further and I can deploy even more of the cash. Otherwise, I’m screwed.
Smart move.
Didn’t realise you have cash saved up. Thought you were using robo advisors for everything.
Curious – why not wait for job cuts/earnings reports in april/may before you buy. Likely to be another drop when the real bad numbers come out, no?
I was Dollar Cost Averaging every month into my robo-advisors and transferred in cash where there’s dips. But I have always kept the majority of my cash in high interest deposit accounts. And kept it un-invested for a few years. I do invest manually as well into individual stocks and ETFs but I tend to do lump sum investing with these when I see big falls in the markets.
You are right about things getting worse and the markets could fall further. But this cash deployment strategy is designed to ensure I actually invest the cash I have been keeping. Once the pricing levels are triggered, I invest regardless of the situation even if I myself think it could get worse too. I learnt this from my investing experience in 2016 when I ended up investing too little of my cash. Because I kept thinking and waiting for the situation to get worse before I invested even more cash.