Compare Korea Index to VWRA/US Index?

More context needed please. Was the FA trying to sell a product, and purposely trying to provide misleading information to prop their product up?

sorry just added the text. don't want to link the reel in case get reported for doxing. He didn't really say to find him for products so it feels genuine compared to those who straight away recommend products. 

It's still a straight up lie, though.

If it's a reel that is able to be viewed by the public, i don't think that counts as doxxing, unless it's a private reel

you should have countered by asking what he thinks would be a better alternative then my guess? he'll probably larp about greater returns with AIA Pro Achiever

LOL or prudential pruvantage wealth

Least 马后炮 FA

Isn't comparing a single-country index dominated by one or two giants to a globally diversified fund like VWRA a apple to orange comparison? 

Yes. And the Koreans actually make WallStreetsBets look mild at times with the amount of leverage they are using. I guess the question is - what is the FA's alternative to a broad-based diversified global index?

I'm also thinking. If being well diversified in a index doesn't work, then the best option will be following their products which are unit trust. Isn't unit trust also quite concentrated? 

Unit trust is just a tool, like ETF. You must see the fund invests in. Chances are, the ILP or whatever product this FA is selling is buying the similar baskets of stocks and bonds. But of course they will tell you the fund is managed by professional and they know when to buy and sell to help you capture the best performance. But then again, statistics also show that active funds fail to outperform passive funds in the long run. The best strategy is actually and hold, instead of trying to buy low sell high.

Unit trusts are just another sales vehicle. ETFs mean that they're traded on exchanges. Unit trusts/mutual funds are carried more by the traditional banks/investment companies/insurance firms. One bigger difference is that ETFs have live prices during trading hours, while unit trusts trade at a price fixed at cutoff time.

Unit trusts can be just as diversified as ETFs. But they are more likely to be actively managed by the fund manager, with higher fees but some chance of outperforming the benchmark index. But there are also index-based unit trusts, with one long-standing example being Lionglobal Infinity US 500 which allowed Singaporeans to easily invest in S&P500 in SGD from \~25 years back, before brokerage apps were a thing.

just to add, I have around 10% of my portfolio in AVGS. It's small cap value by avantis. Main reason is to increase expected returns arising from small cap value stocks, however in the months as you've described AVGS has held up extremely well, because of the fact that most of the portfolio came from financials and non-tech holdings. I think you can analyze, it's technically a non-index fund and and actively managed low cost ETF. My POV is this is the deepest dive by singaporefi mod, Kyith. From my understanding providend doesn't use it yet as its a new fund. (don't quote me if wrong) But the fact that kyith is discussing it is probably a good signal. FYI, If you have VWRA + AVGS they pair well together because VWRA only has mid+ large cap diversification. It doesn't have small cap stocks, and further tilting into SCV historically returned much better. during the whole dotcom boom and bust, the SCV by Dimensional running for more than 20 years already proven itself. Avantis basically takes that recipe and fine tunes it by adding a further profitability factor on top. https://youtu.be/wW2xxh0GnHA?si=HhJItGrF\_S0KAJNm Again, do your own research, understand factor investing, and etc etc. https://www.google.com/finance/beta/quote/AVGS:LON?window=YTD This year statistically is abnormal for SCV, the MSCI value index & rusell 2000 are outperforming basically everything. [https://www.google.com/finance/beta/quote…)

Of course it’s misleading. KOSPI and SGX are made up of a few companies within the same industry. It goes down hard if the companies are down . But if the stock is up then the index is up as well. Currently 186 % since 2020. And if you dont want FAANG to be overly concentrated then you can consider an equal-weight ETF. So what is he comparing against? Or what is his alternative for a “high return with minimum concentration risk”?

VWRA is not as diversified as you think it is because it's 60% US equities but it's about as close as you can get without having to micromanage a bunch of ETFs to achieve better diversification Maybe this guy should mention how their clients would feel if they invested in VXUS and missed out on all the free money they would have gotten had they invested in a ETF with US stocks

in that case, how do people balance this? Because if US market crashes, it will affect VWRA so much. 

But at the same time you'll hold more in other countries because of the US drop so it is okay...

Assuming this person in question is someone who's very paranoid about a crash, there's 2 ways it could go: 1. Nothing. US market has been shown in the past to recover time and time again so it's no big deal if it falls, especially if your investment time horizon is a few decades. 2. Diversify into bonds, real estate, precious metals, maybe even CPF

If more companies gradually find success outside the US, VWRA will rebalance out of the US and into other countries accordingly.

The context is extremely misleading, it’s well documented the recent Kospi swings are due to leveraged ETFs that track SK Hynix and Samsung and Korean retail investors have been pouring their life savings into it. With leveraged ETFs if there is a drawdown it can cause huge volatility. In addition SK Hynix and Samsung make up more than 50% of Kospi so basically the swings are due to 2 stocks. You should ask him why he’s comparing 2 stocks to S&P 500 and VWRA which has more than 3,000 stocks.

So I take it he wants you to buy whatever his insurance coy is offering? You can also buy ssb if so scared of losses.

Just buy nvda,won't go wrong.Singaporefire couple on IG,he invested 30k sgd on NVDA in 2020 and now it's worth 1mil+

Ok, but what’s the next NVDA? It’s pretty much impossible for NVDA to 30x again from where it is now, any time soon. That would be double the market cap of all US stocks put together.

There was some commenter here who huat on MU, and of course got u/dereth with his AVGO. Just need incredible amounts of conviction and luck.

My point is, hindsight is 20:20. But it’s particularly difficult to pick a future 10x stock.

FYI, Nvidia has a lot of circular deals. A large portion of their upcoming revenue is arising from neoclouds buying back into Nvidia GPUs. An instance is Coreweave. Who's basically just to buy Nvidia chips using debt. https://youtu.be/eTXixzzC-34?si=BIB-7AQEHwnRV4KQ Just know he's a short seller, so obviously he screens for companies with high debt, and broken business models. But half way through you realize his point is about Nvidia as well. Previous few years 23,24, there was minimal impact of Nvidia's circular financing, which will become more and more prominent into the coming years. The risk itself isn't Nvidia blowing up but basically the demand from Oracle, Coreweave, and other neoclouds basically not having enough cash/ debt/ confidence to buy more and more into this AI stuff.

Is the FA selling VWRA in the first place? If he is against it now, does it mean he is not knowledgeable enough in the first place?

KOSPI is still up almost 50% YTD even after the "crash". VWRA is up only 15% in comparison

Er, Korea was not a case of passive investing at all. Your FA is a lying scumbag, report him and tell everyone to avoid him at all costs. I'm actually well educated on both Korea situation and passive investing in general.

Trap? KOSPI is up 46% YTD….. I mean yes past month has been bad but if you’ve been DCAing into KOSPI for the past year you’re still up like mad.

Go read up about the whole korean investing culture to better understand how the KOSPI crash happened. Koreans treat investing like a lottery machine as middle class is getting priced out of property market. This gave rise to crazy use of leverage, as well as leveraged ETFs of the KOSPI and Samsung/SK. This amplifies any volatility on a daily basis as the funds reset daily to its target leverage ratio. So a correction would lead to a lot more selling at a lower price to restore leverage ratio (reduce exposure), compounding the effect. So it’s not so simple as just concentration risk.. it’s a whole subculture at play here, with the government egging it on as it benefits politically from the soaring of the stock market.