So far, 2025 has been a year marked by volatility and wild swings in asset markets for investors. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we should be altering our long-term investment plans when it comes to putting our money to work.
To discuss this, a line-up of experienced speakers gathered at the REITs Symposium 2025 (on Saturday 24 May) to discuss the state of the REIT market, and the overall investment landscape, in Singapore.
There was also useful personal finance insights for investors who were interested on insights across asset classes. One of the talks on the Engagement Stage at the REITs Symposium was “How to Start Your Investment Journey with $10,000”, with Tim Phillips – Founder of TimTalksMoney – presenting.
He gave the audience an interesting look at the process behind kickstarting your investing journey, how to use ETFs to build a portfolio and why it’s important to think about asset allocation.
Read Also: The Four REIT Sectors Analysts Think Will Do Well In 2025
The Psychology Of Investing
Starting off the presentation, Tim discussed how the world of investing can be confusing given all the “buy and sell” signals that we receive from markets – usually on the back of headline-driven news.
This is dangerous because it runs anathema to what investors should do, which is to supress impulsive investment behaviours that are based off emotion. Selling at exactly the wrong time, when the market is falling and everyone says the world is “going to end” is something that nearly every person massively regrets later.
That’s because “staying invested” in global stock markets – enduring through in massive bear markets – is half the battle. Using data from the S&P 500 Index in the US, Tim highlighted that if you had missed the 10 best market days over the past 25 years, your returns would have been more than halved versus if you had just stayed invested.
He also went on to highlight that this leads to chronic underperformance of equity fund investors. Citing the Dalbar Study, that looked at equity returns from 1993 to 2022, he looked at how the annualised return of the average equity fund investor over that period was 6.8%.
That was a big underperformance versus the S&P 500 Index’s average annualised return of 9.7% over the same timeframe and a lot of that can be attributed to selling in down markets and buying back into funds when prices were rising.
How To Use ETFs To Construct A Portfolio
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are a great way to get exposure to the world of investing as they can be used to access virtually any asset class.
Indeed, their appeal – low costs, instant diversification and general outperformance versus active funds – has resulted in explosive growth of ETFs’ assets under management (AUM). Since 2006, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ETF assets has been a whopping 19.5%.
As of the end of 2024, the global AUM of ETF assets hit an incredible US$14.7 trillion, up from just US$594 billion in 2006. He went on to describe how, for equity investors, buying “the world” is typically the best way to start as this gives us diversified access to global stocks – without taking a country view.
Read Also: [2025 Edition] Complete Guide To ETF Investing in Singapore
UCITS ETFs For Singapore Investors
He also outlined why it’s important for Singapore (and any non-US investors) to consider UCITS ETFs, an ETF structure that is found in Europe and stands for “Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities”.
This is for three reasons: the lower dividend withholding tax of 15% versus 30% for US-listed ETFs, the prevalence of Accumulating (or Acc) share classes that reinvest dividends, and the potential tax benefits, such as avoidance of US Estate Tax that is applied to US-listed assets of non-US investors.
With that in mind, and a global view on equities, Tim highlighted the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF (LSE: VWRA) that is listed in London and has an annual expense ratio of 0.22% per annum (p.a.). It gives investors global access to stocks, with around 62% exposure to the US and 38% exposure to the rest of the world, in both developed and emerging markets.
Over the past five years, the ETF has averaged annualised returns of 13.1% and the benchmark (the FTSE All-World Index) has delivered an average annualised return of 8.6% over the past decade – broadly in line with what you’d expect from global equities.
Read Also: 3 Ways To Invest In The S&P 500 Index In Singapore
Thinking Outside The Box
In addition to that, Tim also highlighted three other ETFs that investors can consider when building their first portfolio (or a portfolio in 2025).
He spoke about the defensive strengths and resilience of the Singapore stock market and the market’s strong dividend yield.
Currently, one of the best ETFs to access the local market is the SPDR Straits Times Index ETF (SGX: ES3), which has an expense ratio of 0.28% p.a. and has delivered annualised returns of 14.2% over the past five years and 5.2% over the past decade.
The ETF has a dividend yield of around 4.5% and it pays out a dividend twice per year. With just over 50% exposure to Singapore banks, with holdings in a host of larger firms like Singtel and Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering), it’s a good way of getting quick access to the Singapore stock market for investors.
Read Also: Complete Guide To Investing In The Straits Times Index (STI) ETFs In Singapore
On the “alternatives” front, he mentioned gold as a defensive asset given its low correlation to equities (i.e. when gold rises, stocks fall and vice versa) as well as being a way to effectively hedge US dollar weakness.
Tim mentioned the local SPDR Gold Shares Trust (SGX: O87) (SGX: GSD) that trades in both US Dollar (USD) and Singapore Dollar (SGD) share classes. It has an annual expense ratio of 0.40% p.a. and is an easy way to get exposure to gold.
Typically, gold would make up no more than 5% to 10% of an overall portfolio but in these times of uncertainty, he said that many investors are considering gold positions as high as 15% or even 20%, particularly with the recent weakness in the US dollar and US Treasuries (debt).
Finally, Tim talked about the “institutionalisation” or acceptance of Bitcoin as a legitimate financial asset. While the price has risen on the back of President Trump’s “crypto-friendly” policies, he argued that the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in the US at the beginning of 2024 really catapulted the asset class into the view of large institutional investors, such as hedge funds.
As a result, he looked at the biggest Bitcoin ETF out there as a way to play the theme – the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ: IBIT). While he said it wasn’t ideal that it was listed in the US, it’s important to remember the size and scale of the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF meant that an exception could be made.
How To Think About Asset Allocation
Tim concluded his talk explaining how a typical allocation strategy might look like for someone who is in their 20s or 30s and has decades ahead of them in terms of their “investment runway”. It could consist of global equities (70%), Singapore equities (18%), gold (10%), and Bitcoin (2%).
Of course, depending on individuals’ own risk tolerance and their financial goals, this would have to be adjusted but he stressed this was his own interpretation of a basic framework for starting on an investment journey utilising low-cost ETFs.
Read Also: Is Your Investment Portfolio Built To Withstand The Next Financial Crisis?
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