Portfolio activity, October-November 2009

October is the time to do my semi-annual purchase of funds. My asset allocation plan shows that I need to top up two asset classes:

1. Europe equity
2. Japan equity

No top up for REITs as the current holdings in my portfolio is over the target allocation already, because I have accepted a number of rights issues offered by some of the REITs.

For Europe equity and Japan equity, the funds that I will use remain the same: iShares MSCI Europe ETF and Lyxor Japan (TOPIX) ETF respectively. There is an alternative to Europe equity: Lyxor MSCI Europe ETF that was listed in SGX a week ago.  The broker fee to buy this ETF is cheaper than iShares MSCI Europe ETF, which is listed in London Stock Exchange. But for now,  I will give Lyxor MSCI Europe ETF a miss because it is quite new and the asset under management is only slightly more than USD 6 million.

I have made the transaction for Lyxor Japan (TOPIX) ETF and will buy iShares MSCI Europe ETF next week, after its ex-date on 28-Oct-2009.

Portfolio activity, April-July 2009

Just to update my regular fund purchase in April. The asset allocation plan in April indicated top up required for asset classes:

1. US
2. Asia Pacific Ex Japan
3. REIT

I have only bought REIT in April, while I was preparing for the funds for the rest. When the fund was ready, it was July and the asset allocation had changed due to the rise in Asian stock markets. The asset classes to top up in July was US equity only, for which I bought Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI).

As of 7-September-2009, my portfolio allocation is shown below.

	Current	Target
Equity	67%	75%
US	23%	25%
EU	14%	20%
JP	4%	5%
APEJ	8%	10%
SG	4%	5%
REIT	14%	10%
Fixed Income	33%	25%
Global	7%	10%
Asia	6%	5%
SG	13%	10%
Cash	7%	0%

The next regular fund purchase is in October. The 7% cash shown above is the savings for this coming purchase.

Portfolio activity, October 2008

This post is way overdue, but just to update my portfolio activity for the regular fund purchase in October. I topped up the followings according to my asset allocation plan:

• Europe — iShares MSCI Europe ETF
• Asia Pacific Ex Japan — Lyxor Asia Pacific Ex Japan ETF
• REIT  — REIT stocks in SGX
• SG fixed income — SGS bond ladder (partial)

I bought 4-year and 6-year SGS bonds from Fundsupermart, and 5-year SGS bond from primary auction. So the bond ladder is 50% complete. I will hold these SGS till maturity and add 5- or 6- year SGS bond in the future to complete the bond ladder.

The fund purchase was done in late September/early October. It brought my asset allocation to the target 75/25 but it didn’t stay for long (which is normal). The fnancial crisis that followed brought the equity allocation down and it hovers around 65% since then. I thought may be I would do an early top up in January next year, before the next scheduled one in April. But, nah, I think I will be too lazy to do it. Back to my life…