Hey everyone,

So, stock markets in the US hit record highs in the past week (albeit with a pullback on Friday).

If anything, this continues to prove that literally no one has any clue where stock markets are headed in the short to medium term.

Who would have thought that with a war in Iran, spiking oil prices, and higher inflation, we’d be hitting new all-time highs in markets?

It’s barely believable but ignoring this “noise” is so key to staying invested through it all.

Meanwhile, in my “Rate A Portfolio” series, a reader who is 48 years old, a general manager, and three years into their investing journey sent me their full portfolio breakdown and asked for an honest take.

My verdict? 3/10.

Now, before I get into the why, I want to say something upfront: this person is actually doing something, which puts them ahead of a lot of people who perhaps haven’t even started yet. But putting money to work and having a coherent strategy inevitably won’t be the same thing…and that gap is exactly what I want to unpack today.

As you can see below, there’s a lot. Individual stocks. Managed portfolios. Gold. Crypto. A few REITs. An endowment plan. And SGD $100k in cash sitting in two bank accounts. All while investing across six platforms in total: Syfe, StashAway, Endowus, Moomoo, Longbridge, and UOB.

The effort and intent to invest is there and, actually, that matters way more than most people give it credit for. But there are four things I'd fix right now and none of them are all that complicated.

When you're spread across six platforms, you're not diversifying. Instead, I’d view it as just overcomplicating things. Simplicity should be a core part of how you invest, not an afterthought.

The more platforms you add, the harder it becomes to know what you actually own. And when you can't see the full picture clearly, you make worse decisions.

Syfe, StashAway, and Endowus all appear to be managed portfolio products. All three charge higher fees than broad-based ETFs, and in all likelihood are holding similar underlying assets anyway. That means you're paying more for what is, at its core, duplicated exposure.

The fix: consolidate. One robo-advisor, one or two brokers and that's it. Know what you own and why.

They’ve got a "China growth" portfolio, an "income plus" portfolio, a "megatrends" portfolio. These sound like smart plays on cool themes but typically they’re just “hype” or “story” funds that underperform a run-of-the-mill all-world ETF.

I like to see them as compelling narratives wrapped in higher fees, charged annually by the way, on top of performance that most of the time doesn't beat a simple low-cost global ETF over a 3, 5, or 10-year horizon. And that’s not me being cynical because that's simply what the data tell us.

There's no core global ETF in this portfolio at all. A single VWRA/ACWD position could do a lot of the heavy lifting here and will nearly certainly outperform several of these managed funds over the long term.

Before staying put in any of them, it's worth pulling the actual returns (net of fees) and running them against a global ETF over a meaningful time horizon.

Their ops team built inventory command centers and reorder dashboards through Viktor. Supply chain gets daily stockout alerts before they happen. Marketing tracks ROAS and runs content calendars. CS has CSAT scores and support tickets triaged and briefed every morning in Slack, before the first support call. No dashboard digging.

48 internal apps, built through conversation. No code. No developer queue. Command centers, inventory dashboards, sales trackers, reorder systems.

That's one company. Across the platform, teams have built 2,000+ apps the same way: message Viktor in Slack, describe what you need, get a working tool deployed. No code. No six-week dev queue.

Your team doesn't wait for a product roadmap. They message a colleague.

5,700+ teams. SOC 2 certified.

"It was almost instantly adopted by the bulk of my team." — Boris Wexler, CEO, Space Dinosaurs

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There are positions in Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet. No one is saying they’re not great companies but there’s one big issue.

A global ETF already gives you all of them. If you hold them individually on top of that, it doesn't add diversification; it just concentrates the portfolio further into the same names without you necessarily realising it.

And in this age of AI disruption, we genuinely don't know who the Big Tech winners will be over the next decade. You can get the upside of broad tech exposure through a basic global ETF without having to pick specific horses. In short, there’s really no need to double down on the biggest tech companies.

There's $70k in a DBS account as an emergency fund, and $30k in a UOB savings account. Hopefully both are sitting in high-yield savings accounts, but if they are, consolidate into whichever one is paying more.

There's no reason to split it because bank savings accounts usually have tiered interest rates that step up alongside higher deposit amounts (either up to $100k or $150k).

If either account isn't earning at least 1.5%, Singapore Savings Bonds are worth a look. The interest rate steps up over time, the capital is fully protected, and it's one of the safest places to park cash in Singapore. Your emergency fund should at least be working for you while it waits.

This is a portfolio that's trying to do the right things but lacks a clear strategy pulling it all together. The investor is in the market and has some diversification. They’re making a call on select crypto and individual stocks. And again, they’re actually investing, which puts them ahead of a lot of people.

But there are too many moving parts and the structure needs a rethink.

For me, there are four changes to make:

My overall rating: 3/10.

But there's a clear path to a 6 or 7. The foundation is there but it just needs to be simplified and structured properly.

If you're in your 40s, approaching retirement, and want help thinking through your own portfolio, I'm putting together an Investing for 45+ workshop.

Join the waitlist here and I'll be in touch when it opens.

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1. Investing Made Simple: A self-paced course that walks you through building a proper investment portfolio from scratch. ETFs, allocation, brokers, and the mindset to stay consistent. Everything you need to start and keep going. Join here.

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3. Got a question? Submit it here and I might answer it in a future edition.