• Before we proceed onto the next section, I have been using Robo-Advisors since mid-2019.

• There are multiple platforms which started to mushroom around that period of time till today. However, I have a penchant to only use those Robo that comes with a mobile application due to the convenience. 😄 

• Till date I have tried and tested out every single feature available at this point of time in the Stashaway, Syfe and UOB AM Invest, these three Robo-Advisor platforms. 

• I like to try every single feature in order to fully understand and comprehend the mechanism behind the investing tool. This is to built up my knowledge and know-how in all these stuffs quickly without relying solely on reading other people reviews. 

• Thus, with this in mind, I am able to find out what are the true potential returns per year for Robo-Advisor and that's the reason why this is an investing tool which I will encourage new investors to use  to make slightly more money while they sleep and at the same time get their feet wet first. 😄

• Click here to read my review on Stashaway

• Click here to read my review on Syfe

• I have built from scratch successfully a few different Robo portfolios and exited to take profits. Its really not that difficult to build these as the real hard work is done behind the scenes by the Robo-advisors themselves.

• Reason for holding onto 1 Robo instead of 2 or 3 Robos is the fact that each Robo-Advisor has their own methodology to invest your funds, meaning their return of investments (ROI) are different across the board. 

• eg. Endowus ROI can be 8% per annum while Syfe ROI can be 10% per annum depending on which platform you use and within each platform, which plan you decide to on-board.

• To illustrate to you what I meant here using math:

• Not only that, you have to constantly open multiple tabs to view your investments separately and the truth is investing should not have to be so complicated. Moreover, there will be some new features and changes to the existing plans as each Robo will tend to make some minor changes every few months or so to counter new macro-economical forces.

• From the sample math which I shown above, putting all your eggs into 4 baskets may not always lead to a higher return. In this case, putting your eggs all into one common basket is more rational and the returns are higher overall. 😂

• Also, some Robo has additional incentives where you will have to deposit a certain amount of cash into their platform and they will reward you by letting you pay lesser management fees per month as well. Go read up more and you will know! 😌

• Final thoughts is holding on to just one Robo is sufficient.

• This can be as such where you invest eg. 10k SGD into a particular Robo portfolio / plan at the beginning and thereafter, you just sit back and watch your portfolio slowly decline, not knowing what happened and cursing at the Robo for making you lose money.

• When you perform lump sum investing, you are more highly affected / impacted by the performance of the market compared to DCA due to the lesser number of investing points. Let me illustrate and hope that this will enlighten you to think deeper from now onwards. 😁

• The only way to counter this is to DCA regularly which is what I am doing currently.

• This will require understanding the concept of  "Dollar Cost Averaging" (DCA) and more in-depth of how this will affect your investment returns.

• DCA is the action of regularly buying more into a particular investment asset at defined periods such as daily / weekly / monthly etc. The action of buying more can either be by number of shares (10 number of shares per month) or cash amount (only $200 to use per month).

• This is the opposite of lump sum investment where you deposit money to buy an investment asset at the beginning only and thereafter, no more funds are introduced to purchase more in the future.

• When you DCA, you create more investment points throughout and you are able to average down your overall stock price as you are forced to buy into the market regularly ignoring the price of the market.

• If the market is doing well and price increases, you will buy lesser shares and when the market is doing poorly and price decreases, you will be able to buy more shares. 

• On 1st Oct you are able to purchase 15 shares of SPY while with the same amount, you could only purchase 14 shares of SPY due to market price fluctuations. 

• In this sample example, with DCA, you are able to buy a total of 29 shares with 10,000 SGD compared to lump sum investing where you could only buy 28 shares with the same 10,000 SGD.

• Furthermore, by DCA-ing, your average price per stock is lower at $344.82 versus the lump sum investing stock price of $352.60.

• If you DCA just like what I shared above, as long as the current stock market price for SPY is above $344.82, YOU WILL CONFIRM MAKE A PROFIT!!! 

• This is the most important basic concept that you must know in order to understand why you are losing money when you invest in Robo. I hope you get what I am trying to show here. 😊

• Taking reference from the above sample example. The cost price per share is $344.82 for DCA-ing and owning 29 shares of SPY stock.

• If the current stock price is lower than $344.82 please do not make the impulsive decision to sell it right away. 

• Hold on to it with your diamond hands and wait for the market correction to be over.

• Once the stock price goes higher than your cost price per share of $344.82 in the long run, you will see positive returns again.

Hope that this will motivate you to ponder and think deep whenever you do any investments. 😁

• I have tried monthly DCA, weekly DCA and even every alternate day DCA just to see how the returns will be impacted. 
• At the beginning I was unsure of how to invest so I tried both ways of putting 10% (bond like) and 36% (stock like) for risk allocation. 
• In the end, the 36% risk allocation returns were far more superior such that I decided to cash out on my 10% risk allocation project and just focus on this.

36% Risk