I am 29 this year. Any asset allocation advice especially for my cash of 90k?

160k+ Assets - 90k cash (55%), 50k US equities (30%), 25k SG equities (15%). I feel like I am holding too much cash and would like to invest more. However I am looking to buy a house in the next 2 years and would like to have 150k cash then for the down pmt/ reno.

How should I allocate my assets, esp the cash of 90k? I don’t want to caught in a market downturn and not be able to sell my shares when I need the cash for the house. My income is about 100k a year. And I spend about 50%. Thnx!

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Al

22 Jun 2020

https://www.aaronleow.com/max-cpf-home-loan

Do the rough guideline for your home numbers and keep it in cash or short term fixed deposits. Anything above the guideline, you can consider investing if your risk appetite allows. If you want it in cash in 2 years, you can consider liquidating and swallow whatever opportunity cost it might come if the market heads up. There is just no guarantees in investments, so move on with little expectations when you have a time frame of 2 years.

For investments, you can calculate the approximate return using this:

https://www.aaronleow.com/wealth-projection-cal...

Set aside a percentage of your income to invest instead. That would automate the process while you focus on your career.

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Elijah Lee

21 Jun 2020

Senior Financial Services Manager at Phillip Securities (Jurong East)

Hi anon,

If the cash needed for house and reno is needed within the next 2 years, the best thing you can do is not to risk those monies. Stick them in a FD or a short duration endowment plan (those last 2 or 3 years, depending) and continue to save up to your $150K target. We have to be realistic, as you have mentioned, you don't want to liquidate at a loss when the house is ready. With your timeline just 2 years away, I would not want to risk the money. Money needed in the next 1-3 years is best kept in safe/guaranteed instruments.

If you continue to save the rest of your take home income, which should amount to around another $30K savings a year or so, you will have the $150K in 2 years time ($90K + $30K + $30K). Thus it's not really very likely that you can continue to invest much more, unless that $150K downpayment is shared with someone else?

If it's actually $75K per person that you need to come up with, then you can safely continue to invest $20K/yr while setting aside $30-40K in something safe, and the rest in liquidity for day to day expenses. Don't worry about the asset allocation now. Your house should really be the priority if you intend to get in in the next 2 years. After that you can rebuild your portfolio.

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