Itchy Fingers: Shifting Part Of My Funds Out Of My US Growth Portfolio

This is going to be a relatively short post as it is just going to serve as a reminder and reflection for my personal investing journey.  Nothing discussed here should be treated as financial advice of any sorts, it is just my personal thoughts and actions.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I have the intention to liquidate part of my US Growth Portfolio to either further diversify into the Malaysia stock market, or to channel the funds back to the Singapore market.  The purpose for doing this is to further prop up my dividend portfolio, to increase my dividend income for the years ahead.  At the same time, I would probably focus solely on growing my US Portfolio via ETFs like VOO, VTV and FXI in my portfolio moving forward, instead of individual shares.  At the start of May, the currency movements were worrisome as the US Dollar started weakening rapidly against major currencies as well as all ASEAN currencies.  In addition, Singapore Dollar has also weakened against the Malaysian Ringgit.  As such, on 1st May, I immediately executed my plan and liquidated my capital out from individual shares, leaving the profits in the form of remainder shares, which can continue to grow.  For the ETFs I held in my portfolio, they were left untouched.  

On the morning of 2nd May, as I saw further weakening of USD against SGD, I decided to convert approximately USD 23K to SGD, and transferred them out of IBKR into my account for future investment into Singapore shares when the price is right.  Yes, I have abandoned the thought of diversifying into Malaysian dividend stocks, because the exchange rate has been unfavourable during this period.  How this amount will be used depends on which comes first: the market correction or the strengthening of SGD against MYR.

Fast-forward to second week of May, the SGD: MYR exchange rate went back above SGD 1 : MYR 3.3.  However on deeper considerations, I think I will just keep the funds in SGD, and prepare for the volatility at the start of July, when the 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs end.  How things will turn out at that time remains unclear, but keeping funds to add on to existing positions is my personal preferred move (be it averaging up or averaging down) compared to opening new positions currently.  I suppose I will delay entering the Malaysia market after I have consolidated my finances within Malaysia, and if possible, accumulate funds in Ringgit from positive cashflow to inject into the markets.  Whether this is the right move or not, I will never know till 10 or 20 years later when I look back to my current decision, but for now, I think probably doing less is more.  I shall conserve my funds and prevent further forex losses of any sorts (especially when I had converted USD to SGD at the beginning of this month when the exchange rate is not favourable).

That's all for this post.  I definitely need to do less, and smack my itchy fingers when I have the urge to 'rebalance' further when there is absolutely no need for that.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!