Well… it’s that time of the year again.
As regular readers of Financial Horse know.
I like to take the opportunity at the end of each year to do a portfolio review.
To analyse what I did not do well, what were my business mistakes.
And on the flip side to also discuss what I did right.
Investment Portfolio Returns in 2025
As at time of writing.
My investment portfolio – which is everything including stocks, REITs, bitcoin, commodities etc.
But excludes cash and physical real estate.
This investment portfolio returned >30% returns in 2025.
Benchmarking my investment portfolio vs the S&P500 and STI ETF
The S&P500 returned 15% returns this year.
Meanwhile the STI returned 19% this year (excluding dividends).
Throw in the dividend yield of 3.9%.
And you’re looking at about 23% total return on the STI.
Benchmarked vs the S&P500 and STI, my investment returns handily outperformed both, so I’m not complaining.
3 Biggest Investment Mistakes I made in 2025 – with my investment portfolio
That said, there’s no point in blowing your own trumpet.
And my mantra is always that – you learn more from what you did wrong.
With that said these are what I thought were my 3 biggest investment mistakes in 2025.
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Not buying more US stocks in April with the “Liberation Day” sell-off
The April sell-off led to some incredible bargains on US AI stocks, and in MAG7.
That turned out to be a great buying opportunity (albeit with the benefit of hindsight).
Yes I did buy US stocks in April to June after the Liberation Day tariff sell-off.
But with the kind of valuations we were seeing in AI and MAG7, I probably should have bought in even bigger size.
TSMC dipping to a sub-20x trailing P/E in April – for the only fab in the world that can produce the cutting edge semiconductors.
Google at 16x trailing P/E for a cash generating monster with Youtube and Google Search, and a best in class deepmind.
Those were some great buys.
And yes for the record I did buy quite a few which really juiced my investment returns in 2025.
But do I wish I bought a lot more?
Hell yes.
Not running a higher gross exposure into Trump + Rate Cuts
This one is more an asset allocation point.
But in a year where Trump took over the presidency.
And where the Feds are cutting interest rates.
And where US interest rates went from 4.8% to 4.0%.
Those were some huge tailwinds for stocks.
And from an asset allocation standpoint – I made a mistake in holding slightly too much cash, and not running enough gross exposure.
To illustrate this simply, imagine you have $100, and you decide to invest $80.
That’s an 80% gross exposure.
My mistake – I wish my gross exposure this year was a lot higher, and the >30% investment returns was on a larger base.
Still kicking myself for this one.
But that said, hindsight is 20/20.
What’s obvious at the end of the year.
Sometimes isn’t so obvious when you’re actually living through it.
So enough said, learn from my mistakes, and not repeat this in 2026.
Not owning DBS Bank
Okay so I bought a load of DBS Bank during COVID at $18.
And after I doubled my money in 2023-2024.
I decided to take profit in my position in the mid-30s range.
During the time, I also wrote a bunch of articles how I shared my views that DBS bank was fully valued.
And – as fate would have it, a lot of you guys kindly pointed out to me that I was wrong, and that DBS with their world beating ROE would be going to the 50s or higher.
Well – I have no shame in admitting that I was completely wrong, and you guys were completely right.
Because after selling all of my DBS stock in the mid 30s – DBS has only just powered higher.
My theory is that the institutional money flowing into Singapore, from the MAS initiatives to get institutional investors and family offices to invest a portion of their assets in Singapore.
A good chunk of that cash flew into the solid blue chip SGX stocks like DBS Bank.
So yes.
You guys were absolutely right on DBS Bank, and I was absolutely wrong.
DBS Bank is up 31% this year.
Throw in the 5% dividend and that’s a 36% return – just owning a boring blue-chip like DBS bank.
Big lesson learnt.
What I did well in 2025?
On that note, I also wanted to talk briefly about what I did well in 2025.
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Sold all my Ethereum (and most of my altcoins) at the peak
A mistake I made in previous cycles was not selling my crypto at the right times.
Well – this cycle I avoided that mistake.
After Ethereum went from 1500 in April to 4800 in August.
An astounding 3.2x return in 5 months.
I decided to take profit.
So I sold all my Ethereum above 4000, and I sold most of my altcoins around this period as well.
That turned out to be the right call, because crypto has gone on a mini crash since then, with Ethereum going below 3000 at one point.
That being said, I intentionally did not take profit in my Bitcoin positions, so I did hold Bitcoin from $124,000 down to $85,000.
This was a conscious decision because Bitcoin I was happy to hold longer term.
Whereas Ethereum and altcoins I figured if I was in the money, I would just lock in the profits.
Running a large REIT (and gold) allocation into Fed Rate cuts
From an asset allocation standpoint.
Going into 2025, I held a good chunk of my portfolio in REITs, and in gold.
REITs because I thought a Fed rate cut cycle would be good for REITs.
And gold because I thought gold was a good hedge against money printing under Trump.
Both turned out to be great decisions.
The Lion-Philip REIT ETF returned 15% returns in 2025 excluding dividends.
And I was actually up 23% on my REIT portfolio in 2025 including dividends, so on that basis I actually outperformed the benchmark which is great considering I only buy large cap blue chip REITs with primarily Singapore exposure.
And gold – Gold was just unbelievable in 2025.
With an astounding 60% return.
Yes, I kid you not.
Gold was about 2600 USD/ounce in Jan.
And it’s going to close the year around 4200 USD/ounce.
You literally could have bought this boring old metal at the start of the year and outperformed all the best fund managers in the world.
And 4x-ed the returns on the S&P500.
Unbelievable stuff.
That said.
If there’s something I’ve learned.
It’s that when an asset class delivers an unbelievable performance like this in one year.
You want to be very careful about extrapolating those returns into the future.
So yes REITs and gold did well this year.
Will they do as well in 2026?
I don’t know.
Buying AI and MAG7 after the April sell-off
Okay I discussed this under the mistake above.
The mistake was that I did not buy AI and MAG7 in enough size after April.
What I did right though, was that at least I bought some.
I bought Google and a bunch of other MAG7 and AI stocks in after the April crash.
And that has paid off handsomely.
Closing Thoughts
So there you have it!
My portfolio roundup for 2025, and my 3 biggest mistakes, and 3 things I did right.
And my full portfolio and how I am positioned going into 2026 is shared on FH Premium.
Love to hear from readers though!
What do you think about the above.
What did you do right (or wrong) in 2025?
This is an FH Premium article I am releasing for all readers. If you enjoy articles like this, do support Financial Horse on FH premium and get access to premium articles like this.
Congrats on the great year and always appreciate your honest sharings and thoughts!
Thanks you – no problem at all! Happy holidays!