As the interest rates on T-Bills and high interest bank accounts start to drop, the returns on my cash balances have been decreasing. While I still plan to maintain a sufficient level of cash holdings, it seems like I need to increase my regular investments to make up for the drop in returns from deposits. I don’t think it’s a good time to make a big lump sum investment at this time with the market highs.
Sure, the market can always go higher like what’s happening now since the 2021 market highs and subsequent 2022 market crash. But to take advantage of the recovery, I needed to have cash on hand to invest. But because I over-invested during the market highs in 2021, I didn’t have much cash left to buy into the 2022 market crash. I also averaged down too aggressively not realising it was not just a market dip. While I had monthly salary income and made regular investments, this happened over time while the recovery was already underway. Not being able to make a lump sum investment during the 2022 market crash hurt.
Lesson learnt – I can raise my regular investments during market highs in case it does go higher. But more importantly, I cannot use up my cash holding so quickly to the point where I miss out on the market crash. However, that being said, I did not anticipate such a fast recovery from the Apr 2025 market crash. I was getting ready to make a lump sum investment and the market just rebounded so quickly. Means this conservative approach still results in missed opportunities if I don’t react in time. Never mind. Getting burnt during the 2022 market crash left its mark. I rather sleep better at night than to have sleepless nights.
This is what I have done so far to adjust my monthly investments.
- POSB Invest Saver – Increased monthly investments for both REIT ETFs
- OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan – Started monthly investments for SG banking stocks and increased monthly investment for REIT ETF
- Tiger Trade – Started daily buys for more US tech stocks
- CoinHako – Changed weekly to daily recurring buys for BTC
- Crypto.com – Changed weekly to daily recurring buys for BTC
I have not made any changes to my other regular investments – StashAway, UOB SimpleInvest, OCBC RoboInvest, Endowus, MariInvest and TrustInvest. No need to be so aggressive yet. Got to protect my downside in case the markets starts trending downwards instead since we are at market highs. Until I solve the main problem of raising my monthly active income and lowering my monthly expenses, I have a limited amount of monthly savings to allocate for cash vs investments. While I’m slowly weighting this ratio more towards investments, it takes time to get to a comfortable level of cash to make this work. No need to rush and be patient. Again, we are at market highs now in 2025 and I don’t want to get into the same messy situation as the 2021 market highs and 2022 market crash.
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Here’s my referral link if you are interested in setting up a StashAway account: https://www.stashaway.sg/referrals/fuyeec3rx
Here’s my referral link if you are interested in setting up an Endowus account: https://endowus.com/invite?code=Q8FKI
Here’s my referral code if you are interested in setting up a MariBank account: 7SHX10NK
Here’s my referral code if you are interested in setting up a Trust Bank account: ERE7AGCD