So I received this question from a reader recently:
Hi FH,
I am a 34yo, working as a scientist. I’ve been following your blog for some time and have found your writing quite useful as I am someone early in my investment journey.
I plan to invest about SGD 250k in US equities (primarily in S&P 500 ETFs, no individual stock picking). The rest of my cash is in SG T-bills and UOB One account (about $250k as well). I don’t plan to buy any property soon.
I have been averaging into the market since the tariff-led downturn began (about $4k per week). But I sometimes wonder if this is too conservative and if I should put in larger sums, since I am sitting on a fair bit of cash in the meantime. I have the cash set aside for buying equities in my IBKR brokerage account, which doesn’t pay much interest on the uninvested SGD.
As nobody can really know if the market has bottomed or if there is a recession looming or something else, I feel like DCA is the best strategy for me personally. Perhaps it is just FOMO that makes me think of buying larger sums now.
What do you think?
Now for obvious reasons, I have amended some of the details above to protect the privacy of the reader.
But when I read the above, 3 questions jumped out:
- Does putting your portfolio entirely into the US make sense?
- How I may invest $250,000 in 2025’s market crash?
- How to buy – Dollar Cost Average or lump sum?
Does putting your portfolio entirely into the US make sense?
Based on the rough portfolio breakdown.
The reader has $250,000 that he/she plans to invest in US stocks (S&P500).
And another $250,000 to be held in cash, with no plans to buy property any time soon.
This means that almost 50% of his net worth would be invested in stocks, and within that it will be 100% US stocks.
Is this too much concentration risk?
Is putting 100% of your portfolio into the S&P500 too risky?
Of course if you look at the big picture chart.
Almost every dip on the S&P500 the past 10 years has proven to be a great buying opportunity:
Even if you factor in the depreciation of the USD against the SGD, you would still be far ahead buying the S&P500 instead of the STI.
Here’s ChatGPT running the numbers for me:
Over the decade 24 Apr 2015 → 18 Apr 2025:
- Every S$1 placed in a broad, dividend-reinvested S&P 500 fund and left un-hedged against currency grew at ≈ 11.5 % a year after translating back into Singapore dollars.
- The same S$1 invested in the Straits Times Index (STI) – including dividends (using the SPDR STI ETF as a proxy) – compounded at ≈ 5 % a year.
In other words, an un-hedged S&P 500 position roughly doubled the STI’s 10-year SGD return.
If the past decade is any indicator – yes 100% all-in into the S&P500 would be a no brainer.
But… past returns are not an indicator of future performance?
But as the cliché goes – past returns are not an indicator of future performance.
The S&P500 has performed very well the past 10 – 15 years.
Will this outperformance continue to hold up going forward?
I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of talk about the end of “US exceptionalism” because of a mix of Trump’s tariff policies, and the rise of a more multilateral world.
Throw in an S&P500 chart that has broken key supports and moving averages – and there is some cause for concern.
What is the key question to ask yourself when making this decision?
I think the key question to ask yourself when making this decision is what is your goal?
Are you looking to grow wealth aggressively, or preserve wealth?
As a wise horse (okay this is just me) always said:
Concentrate to get rich, diversify to stay rich.
For the reader above, given he is early in his investment journey, I suppose the key goal is to build wealth.
So yes, I can understand why he would want to invest purely in the S&P500, and hope that last decade’s of US outperformance continues going forward.
What is my take – How I may invest $250,000 in 2025’s market crash?
Personally for me though, maybe I am in a different stage of investment journey, or maybe I am just old fashioned.
But I wouldn’t put 100% of my portfolio into US stocks.
The way I see it, the key asset classes that look attractive to me today are:
- Singapore stocks
- US Stocks
- China stocks
- Bitcoin / Gold
- Bonds / REITs
I share in depth views on each in the FH Premium, but I’ll touch on it briefly here.
Singapore stocks
The STI has had as astounding recovery from the bottom – reclaiming the 50 day moving average.
Almost a v-shaped recovery when you look at it this way:
I can see why Singapore stocks look attractive in this post-tariff world, because:
- Singapore stocks have relatively cheap valuations (relative to US before the sell-off)
- Most stocks pay a 5%ish dividend which is attractive returns even if the stock just goes sideways
- Singapore could benefit as a neutral / safe-haven country, benefitting from outflows from US/China
You can see how stocks like Singtel are actually breaking out to new highs:
US Stocks
US stocks on the other hand – the chart for the S&P500 doesn’t look great, having broken key supports:
But under the surface – many stocks are trading at 2024 lows.
This to me presents opportunity from a stock picking perspective.
Whenever the market is pricing in doom and gloom (like right now), I get very interested because you just need the future to be less bad than what is priced in, and you could see meaningful upside.
So with US while I don’t know if the index as a whole has bottomed, I think it’s worth taking a look from a single stock perspective, as certain stocks are trading at attractive valuations.
China stocks
You know what.
While the S&P500 chart looks terrible, the chart for Hang Seng tech looks very bullish.
With a textbook bounce from the 200 day moving average, and the general uptrend since late 2024 still intact.
China is controversial, and I’m not here to debate the future of China (although I will release an article tomorrow that shares my in-depth views on the US-China endgame).
From an investment perspective, the benefits of China are:
- Valuations are cheap
- China stocks are pretty much uncorrelated with global stocks (diversification benefits)
From a macro perspective, the key with China is whether Beijing passes the necessary stimulus to offset the deflationary impact from tariffs and real estate deleveraging.
Jury is still out on that one.
Bitcoin / Gold
Recent events have suggested that both Bitcoin and Gold are decent hedges against geopolitical and FX volatility.
There’s some nuance in that Bitcoin behaves more like a risk-on asset versus gold.
But bottom line, I think there is a place for both in my portfolio.
Bonds / REITs
With higher interest rates – Bonds are a very decent alternative to equities if you are not looking to grow wealth very aggressively.
A US 5 year treasury yields about 4% yield, which means you can get 5%ish yield on an investment grade bond portfolio that is SGD hedged, for relatively low risk.
That’s definitely worth looking at in my view.
REITs *can* perform a similar function too, with a notable caveat that REITs are a lot more volatile than bonds in terms of market pricing.
It still works as a bond proxy, but you need to pick the right REITs and be able to stomach some volatility.
How would I split $250,000 between Singapore, US, China, Bitcoin, Gold?
Gun to my head?
Within the equities / risk component, I would probably split it something like this:
- US Stocks – 40%
- Singapore Stocks – 25%
- China Stocks – 15%
- Bitcoin/Gold – 20%
I still want to overweight the US because there is a decent chance that US exceptionalism continues in the next decade.
But the addition of Singapore, China and Bitcoin/Gold gives me (in my view) much more diversification in the event US performs poorly.
But of course, a more diversified portfolio like this makes sense if you have a large pool of capital.
At smaller amounts of capital, it may not make sense to be so diversified.
So some individual judgment is required here.
I also didn’t have time to discuss single stocks in this article, but you can check out the FH REIT / Stock watchlist for the single stocks I am looking at.
How would I split $250,000 between cash, T-Bills, bonds, REITs?
For what it’s worth, I thought the investor keeping $250,000, or 50% of the net worth in cash did seem like quite a large amount, especially given no plans to buy property soon.
Maybe there are other reasons for this so I can’t comment.
But if this were me, and I didn’t need to use the cash any time soon?
I would probably move a portion of the cash into medium duration bonds for a higher yield.
This provides a better mix of liquidity (from the cash component) and yield (from the bond component).
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How to buy in the 2025 market crash – Dollar Cost Average or lump sum?
“I plan to invest about SGD 250k in US equities (primarily in S&P 500 ETFs, no individual stock picking). The rest of my cash is in SG T-bills and UOB One account (about $250k as well). I don’t plan to buy any property soon.
I have been averaging into the market since the tariff-led downturn began (about $4k per week). But I sometimes wonder if this is too conservative and if I should put in larger sums, since I am sitting on a fair bit of cash in the meantime. I have the cash set aside for buying equities in my IBKR brokerage account, which doesn’t pay much interest on the uninvested SGD.”
Some quick numbers.
$250,000 to invest.
At a pace of $4,000 a week.
That’s a total of 62.5 weeks to invest the full amount.
What is the average duration of a bear market in US stocks?
I asked ChatGPT to crunch the numbers for me.
The conclusion:
“Bottom line: Across nearly a century of S&P 500 history, the typical bear market (a 20 %+ decline from a peak) lasts roughly one year.
Most studies cluster between 9 and 13 months (≈ 289–409 days) from the prior high to the ultimate low. Post-World-War-II bears average about 11 months, while adding pre-war episodes or the unusually short 2020 crash pulls the full-period average down to ~9½ months.
Rule of thumb: when markets drop 20 %+, expect ~12 months of turbulence and be mentally (and financially) prepared for up to two years before portfolios fully heal.”
But note that there is significant disparity between bear markets.
In plain English, some bear markets are over in the blink of an eye, some play out over many years:
“Shortest: COVID-19 crash, 33 days (Feb 19–Mar 23 2020)
Longest post-WWII: 1973-74 oil-shock bear, 630 days (–48 %).
Depth matters: Recessionary bears tend to last 14-18 months, non-recessionary about 7 months on average (LPL & Schwab datasets).
Duration to reclaim the old high is much longer—3 to 69 months across the 13 bears since 1946.
Median recovery is a little under two years.”
So… Dollar Cost Average or lump sum?
Using historical data – averaging in over a 12 month+ period seems reasonable.
But if it’s a short crash like COVID then you lose out of course, as frontloading would deliver superior returns in that case.
Is 2025 a short crash, or a long crash?
Short answer – nobody knows.
It depends on many factors:
- Trade deal with EU / China / Canada & Mexico / Japan
- Tax cuts (passed via Congress)
- Fed rate cuts (Powell)
- Government Fiscal Spending (Trump / Bessent)
- Stimulus from China
So if you don’t know whether this is a short or long crash, and you still need to decide whether to frontload your investments.
Then it goes back to risk appetite.
Is the paramount consideration to manage risk, or to maximise upside?
I would say that if you want to be very aggressive (and you are not already significantly invested in this market), then maybe a bit more frontloading of the purchases may make sense.
If the goal is to manage risk, spreading the purchases out over some time would make sense.
Closing Thoughts: How would I do it? Investing in the 2025 market crash?
Long time readers know that while I look at the macro fundamentals closely, I also pay close attention to technical analysis and charts.
And the charts suggest that Singapore stocks, China stocks and Bitcoin/Gold look bullish.
While the US is much more mixed.
But you know what.
After the sell-off – from a fundamental perspective across the board I actually see decent value across all markets.
I don’t see a rush to deploy funds as depending on how tariffs play out there is a decent risk of a global economic slowdown.
But prices are at the point where I would sit up and start looking from a single stock perspective.
As always, I share my latest macro views, the stocks/REITs I am looking at, and regular updates to my personal portfolio on FH Premium.
This post is written on 25 April 2025 and will not be updated going forward. My latest views on markets, my Stock watchlist and full Personal Portfolio, are shared on FH Premium.