WI Winnie digiportfolio newbie

[UncleSam]

Hi, I've been in and out of the digiportfolio for about 4 times and am on my 5th. It's more reasonable to keep your digiportfolio for at least a year or two. Dividends are reinvested, which means you will grow and compound, and the people managing it have been quite active. I personally believe the capital and dividend gains will definitely beat savings interest rates and may be an annual gain of at least 3% if you are super conservative.

The purpose of buying into this digiportfolio is for you to passively dump your money while being fully aware of (i) the risks you are exposing yourself to (but that is managed with diversification via the bundle of component ETFs), and (ii) your ultimate goal for this investment (e.g. either you revisit it after 10 years or you exit when you surpass the 10% threshold within 2 years; depends on what you really want).

I was quite disappointed by the unfortunate timing of the recent tinkering that included Hang Seng Tech ETF just before the China dip. So can only hope things get better.

Before the recent latest portfolio rebalancing, the fluctuations for the "highest risk" (fast and furious) Asia Digiportfolio was about 4-5 percentage points from the principal sum invested, all within the space of 6 months.

As you might wonder why I've been in and out of DigiPortfolio. I was just depositing large sums of money I short-term borrowed at 1% (from another bank, 0% interest for 6 months, 1% admin fee, great deal there), and entered into the DigiPortfolio of the mornings when its component STI ETF and SG REIT ETF hit dips (they're always fluctuating and typically correlated to DJIA movements the night before), back then when those components had higher weightage. And then I will exit after a dividend cycle or two (of the component ETFs), and at about 4-5% growth in the portfolio within 5 months. So the earnings will be about 2-4% of the vested sum within that short period of time - a low bar, but I've low expectations. As a non-investor/finance-trained person, it is generally not advisable to do this kind of thing.

I was previously on the now-defunct Smartly roboadvisor, which was a s**tshow in its final weeks, as funds were locked in before they killed off the company and refunded investors at losses during the onset of COVID. DBS DigiPortfolio (Asian and Global) are decent tools at the moment - they might have overtinkered the balancing but even the professionals get it wrong with other people's hard-earned monies and still sleep well at night. They are continuing to iterate the platform for better user experience, and I believe very soon, they might even incorporate auto-savings function (daily, weekly, monthly, or any interval) just to differentiate themselves from the competition, right product manager?

All the best!

[HeyAnna]

I understand this feeling! It can be daunting as a new investor about your next steps after starting an investing venture. I would take it one day at a time to observe and review the trends of my portfolio. Not forgetting doing your market research. Good luck in your journey!

Check out the AMA thread with our DBS Funds Team here for more insights and advice directly from them!