Russia has invaded Ukraine and they are now at war. It’s unbelievable to me what has happened in the span of a few weeks since my last update on the blog. I’m not going to comment any further on the Ukraine crisis since it’s covered everywhere on the media. I just hope that things will improve and the world can come out of such a terrible situation.
Anyway, I will move on to what I know to write about as I just updated my Google Sheet numbers as of end Feb 2022. I was expecting another big negative hit when adding up the various positions to get our cash, securities, robo-advisors, cryptos, CPF-OA and Liquid Assets values. They went down significantly last month and I was thinking the Ukraine crisis will surely push them down further.
To be honest, it did not turn out as bad as I thought it would. The underperformance in one asset class (stocks and ETFs) was outweighed by overperformance in another asset class (cryptos). I guess the diversification in our investment portfolio is working to some extent. Here is the end Feb 2022 Liquid Assets breakdown.
Cash: S$22,000 (-S$10,000 and -31.25%)
I was averaging down on my tech stocks & ETFs and cryptos positions even more so than last month as markets fell. I used up much more of my cash buffer this time around. I still have enough cash to pay for my mortgage, rent and daily expenses but I’m living on a monthly cashflow basis now. Our salary income is keeping us afloat by replenishing our cashflow every month. Otherwise, I will run out of cash by the end of the month at the rate I’m investing.
Securities: S$816,000 (-S$2,563 and -0.31%)
My securities value still fell for the month but the drop is much less compared to the previous month. Regular capital injections to average down on my existing positions and a late recovery in stock markets helped to cushion the fall. I will continue to average down where there are opportunities but I’m pacing my investing cash utilisation rate so I don’t run out before my next salary income is credited.
Robo-Advisors: S$109,500 (+S$2,940 and +2.76%)
The automated funds transfers into my robo-advisor accounts for investing is finally starting to show results. Most are still in losses because I opened them last year before the stock markets tanked. I’m ok to leave the Dollar-Cost Averaging investment strategy in place since it works better in a bear market.
Cryptos: S$204,700 (+S$31,900 and +18.46%)
My efforts to divert more of my available cash funds here and apply both Dollar-Cost Averaging and Manual Averaging Down investment strategies are starting to pay off. The late rebound in the cryptos market also helped to improve the performance of my portfolio. I also changed my approach to target specific cryptos with long term potential by taking bigger positions in them. Previously, I was taking smaller positions in too many cryptos. The portfolio looks more focused now and this makes it easier for me to monitor and invest my cash in fewer but larger existing positions.
CPF-OA: S$147,800 (+S$400 and +0.27%)
While we received our monthly CPF-OA contributions, most of it went into paying off the housing loan and robo-advisor account for investing. The increase each month will be minimal going forward except for certain months where the CPA-OA contributions from annual bonuses and interest for the year are credited.
Liquid Assets: S$1,300,000 (+S$22,677 and +1.78%)
With the cryptos portfolio propping my liquid assets up, I’m finally back at S$1.3m. Which is my starting point last year after completing my private property purchase. It’s an expensive housing choice relative to our income and cost us most of our cash balance. Something we have not recovered from. But I hope it becomes a home that my family will enjoy living in and is worth the price we paid for it.