I invest for steady compounding and a portfolio my family can understand. Global accumulating ETFs provide the foundation, country tilts add local exposure and income, bonds provide stability, and gold and crypto broaden the mix. Each sleeve has a clear role, with rules to keep day-to-day decisions manageable.

Snapshot: 31 August 2026. The invested portfolio stood at S$3.078 million, with a separate Bridge Cash Bucket of S$416.9k. Together, they reached an all-time high of S$3.495 million.

CPF savings, property and cash outside the investments and Bridge Cash Bucket are excluded from these totals. The sleeve targets and holdings below refer to the invested portfolio only.

For the transactions and thinking behind this snapshot, read my July–August 2026 portfolio update.

How I run it

• Contributions: New money goes mainly to Core and Defensive while I work towards their target weights.
• Rebalancing: I use soft bands of about ±3 percentage points at sleeve level, drawing on contributions and distributions first.
• Country tilts: These combine additional US exposure with Singapore shares and REITs for income. Their target is now 13%, incorporating the former 3% AUD FX allocation.
• Alternatives: Gold and crypto have a combined target of 12%. I may add Bitcoin on pullbacks while keeping the sleeve within its band.
• Legacy single stocks: I aim to exit these gradually when the opportunity is appropriate. Closing PAA in July was another step towards a simpler portfolio.

The AUD exit

The Australian ETFs were largely a legacy AUD position that I had held while waiting for a favourable AUD/SGD rate. In August, I judged that substantial further appreciation looked unlikely in the near term and exited A200, AAA, MVW and QOZ, converting the proceeds back to SGD and USD for redeployment. A small legacy BPH holding remains.

Moving capital from those investments into the cash bridge reduced the invested portfolio's balance. The combined value of the investments and reserve nevertheless increased.

The Bridge Cash Bucket

The BCB is a separate spending reserve with a S$420,000 target. At the end of August, it held S$416.9k, or 99.3% of its target, leaving approximately S$3.1k to complete it.

The reserve combines high-yield savings accounts and time deposits across three local banks, together with Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs). The cash accounts and time deposits have an approximate blended yield of 2.65% p.a.

IB01 and ERNA remain within the Defensive investment sleeve, separate from the reserve earmarked for spending.

Custody and simplicity

In late July and early August, I transferred all my LSE-listed UCITS ETFs from IBKR to Standard Chartered Bank Singapore in specie. Moving the holdings without selling them preserved the investment exposure and supported my goal of making the portfolio easier for my family to navigate.

The targets below total 100% of the invested portfolio. They are intended allocations, rather than the current weights of the holdings.

See the table below for the detailed breakdown.