‘Rojak Portfolios’ and ‘poor millionaires’

What do you call a mish-mash of investment products haphazardly acquired throughout an investor’s lifetime, with an overall portfolio return of 0.5% and which the investor can’t even bear to look at? It is called a “Rojak Portfolio”. It happens to most investors.

As an example, see the table below: The “Rojak Portfolio” totals $800,000 and gives an overall return of 0.5% per annum. It is a mixture of blown-up, best-forgotten investments and some cash and blue-chip stocks.

Eight hundred thousand dollars growing at an overall portfolio return of 0.5% for 15 years will amount to $862,146. Hardly substantial. But if one were to invest the same amount in the Singapore stock market exchange traded fund at an 8% rate of return per year, it will result in $2,537,735. That is a tripling of the original amount!

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