Mid-June Update

Hi friends,

I hope that you have been well, especially after going back to work, and adapting to the "new normal" after Circuit Breaker (CB) is over. It has not changed much for me, as the internship that I am doing is counted as an essential service, so I have been traveling to and fro office every day. The major change for me is that I am just hoping for school to start again, as I feel that my brain is starting to lose its mathematical prowess.

Let's talk about the changes that happened:

1. Standard Chartered reduced the JumpStart account's interest from 2% to 1% from 30th June 2020 onwards

This was really hurtful, as the interest generated from the account was substantial. My house's wifi plan was heavily subsidized from the interest. Furthermore, the account has served as an important place for me to park my cash reserve to slowly deploy into the market.

Because of this change, I have decided to move my cash reserve into Stashaway Simple (which a projected interest rate of 1.9%). This is as it is relatively convenient to deploy the money by setting up an automatic transfer from the Simple account to my portfolio.

2. Nasdaq reached an all-time high on the 10th of June 2020, the other US indexes were also near their original peaks

This was mainly due to the market's optimism about the economy opening up again. As you would remember, I have decided to withdraw a substantial amount of my investment in the mid of May last month as I had anticipated a drop. So I was a bit salty and sad that my predictions were wrong. Until point 3

3. A sudden drop of 5% in the S&P 500 from the 10th of June to 11th June.

Yes! The reason why I was kinda hesitant about deploying my cash reserves was that I felt that the market was way overvalued at the 30% rise from the bottom in March. I really felt that there was too much optimism in investors and we weren't looking at the business impact that Covid-19 has caused to the businesses. 

But the drop has sort of shocked the investors by giving them a taste of reality instead of just being optimistic about the current situation. So, anticipating the fall, I have decided to increase my DCA every week (This is done as I have decided to start putting in the money from the Standard Chartered bank account)

Do comment below and let me know how you feel that the market will behave like in the coming months. Are you optimistic? Or are you pessimistic?

Here are the changes to my investment:

1. $1200 every month into StashAway, 1 unit of the S&P 500 in Kristal and 200 into SG REITs

2. I will still try to time the market with the REITs portion. This is my fun money. Too bad. But please don't practise what I am doing. 

3. I will continue to DCA, as I really cannot understand the market's behavior right now. DCA would be the most appropriate way forward. 

With that, 
I end today's topic. 

Stay vested, Stay frugal my friends,
Dionysius