My 3 Biggest Investing Mistakes in 2024 – What was my portfolio return this year?

As is customary as we head into the end of the year.

I wanted to do a year-end post to reflect on:

1. My overall investment return for the year
2. My 3 Biggest Investing Mistakes in 2024
3. What I did well in 2024

Let’s get right into it!

What was my investment portfolio returns in 2024?

I usually break down the investment return into bands of 5% range.

For 2024, as at time of writing (16 Dec).

Total investment return is between 30 – 35%.

I always get questions on how this is computed.

Simply put, this is the investment return of my portfolio which includes everything from stocks, REITs, gold, crypto, commodities and so on.

But it excludes cash, CPF (I don’t invest my CPF) and private real estate positions.

How does that compare to other major benchmarks?

Of course, the absolute number is meaningless on its own, as you need to compare it to the “opportunity set” that you are presented.

If you are delivering 10% returns in a year the S&P500 did 20%, that’s nothing to shout about.

If you are delivering 10% returns in a year the S&P500 dropped 5%, that’s amazing stuff.

So performance is all relative.

For 2024 year to date:

The S&P500 returned 30%

The Singapore Straits Times Index (STI) returned 23% (inclusive of dividends).

Viewed in that light I don’t think my investment performance of 30 – 35% was amazing, but generally in line with / slightly outperforming the benchmarks.

As always, my full portfolio is shared on FH Premium for those who are keen.

My Top 3 Investing Mistakes in 2024

You learn more from your mistakes than your successes, so let’s start with the 3 biggest mistakes.

Holding too large a REITs position (relative to Singapore Banks)

If you look at the breakdown of why the STI performed so strongly this year.

It’s largely come down to the performance of the 3 local banks.

Here’s the chart of DBS Bank – which is up 50% in 2024 alone, even before you include dividends.

That’s unbelievable.

When you factor in the fact that almost half of the STI ETF is bank stocks – that’s a big reason why the much-derided STI is up 23% this year (after being flat in 2023).

Meanwhile, the performance of REITs has been terrible.

Despite a huge rally to start 2024, and a huge rally on rate cut euphoria – REIT prices today are largely flat for the year.

In 2024 one of my biggest mistakes was running too big a REITs position, and too small a position in the Singapore banks.

Yes I do have some exposure to banks, but had I bought a lot more banks, and owned much less REITs, investment performance would have been much, much higher.

My REITs portfolio is about flat for the year including dividends, and the banks are up almost 50%.

Had I flipped the exposure around, that probably would have been worth another 5 – 10 percentage points in investment returns.

Not being long(er) MAG7 in first half of 2024

Apart from the banks, the standout performer in 2024 was MAG7 (NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft etc).

Of which of course – NVIDIA is the standout performer with an unbelievable 170% year to date return.

But for what it’s worth, the performance of the rest of the MAG7 is not too shabby too.

Meta is up 75% in 2024:

Amazon is up 50% in 2024:

Microsoft is up 20% in 2024:

Again this mistake is similar to the banks / REIT above.

In that yes I have exposure to MAG7.

But had it been a lot bigger in the first half of 2024, and I would have had much higher investment returns. 

The saving grace is that I upped exposure to MAG7 in Q3 2024 in anticipation of a Trump win, and this has done very well in the final quarter after the Trump election win.

Too heavy cash in early 2024

The final mistake goes back to risk exposure.

I’ve generally been running about 50% gross exposure in early 2024.

In hindsight – that probably should have been even higher, as the stock market returns this year was phenomenal.

But to be absolutely honest, this lesson is easy in hindsight, and not so straightforward on further examination.

If I had increased risk exposure materially in early 2024, and markets had gone down instead, I would easily have been writing about how much mistake was not running a lower risk exposure.

So the better question is whether based on information available at the start of 2024, would it have been obvious that this year would have such phenomenal returns?

And to be absolutely honest.

I think if you give me the exact same fact pattern today.

I would probably still not go all-in in early 2024, and I would still run about a 50-60% gross exposure.

So on further thought, I don’t necessarily think that was a mistake.

The amount that I invested returned 30 – 35%, and sure I made mistakes that prevented an even higher return.

But the gross exposure I ran was a conscious decision based on my risk appetite and my gauge on the global macro, and I’m not so sure I would have done anything differently.

I did increase risk exposure materially heading into Nov once it became clear that Trump had a good chance of winning the elections, and I increased risk exposure even further on election day after Trump won.

So that part I did right at least.

What I did right(ish) in 2024?

So those are the mistakes.

What about what I did well?

Launch of Dividend Investing MasterClass – Massive Launch Discount!

Just a quick update that I’ve been working on this the past 3 years, and it’s finally done – the Dividend Investing MasterClass.

The Dividend Investing MasterClass is a complete all in one course.

That teaches you the fundamentals on constructing a dividend portfolio – to achieve the cash flow you need to achieve financial freedom, while managing risk.

Whatever your stage of life, if you’ve ever wanted to build a dividend portfolio, this is the course for you.

We’re launching with a special launch promo – a huge discount from the official course price, and complimentary access to FH Premium thrown in!

Check out more details here.

Holding a large Bitcoin / Crypto position

I hold a relatively large Bitcoin / Crypto position as a percentage of my portfolio.

And yes this went sideways for most of the year from March to Nov.

But after the US elections and Trump won – boy this really kicked into second gear and supercharged my portfolio returns.

That being said, Bitcoin / Crypto being the ultimate speculative asset class – it’s fairly clear this will end in tears at some point

So as shared I have been looking to scale out of my positions over time.

It’s a balance because if you sell too early, you miss out on some of the juicy late stage returns (which can be very high if things go into euphoria mood).

And yet if you sell to late, you may end up giving up most of your profits.

So there is a balance here, and scaling out over time, guided by some technical analysis, is what I’ve been doing.

Taking profit in almost all of my oil / commodities positions

Another one that I did right was to take profit in almost all of my oil and commodities positions.

With inflation coming down, with supply chain pressures subsiding, a weak China, and the oil market kept afloat via Saudi supply cuts.

I decided to lock in most of my profits in oil and commodities positions, and rotate into other sectors.

That turned out to be a good decision, because the price of oil has pretty much gone nowhere for a year (has been trending down actually):

Likewise for commodities, apart from the brief Sept jump on excitement about China stimulus:

That said at current prices I think commodities are starting to look interesting again.

And I may well add to commodities positions as we go into 2025, especially if 2025 is going to see the return of inflation on Trump’s policies.

Being long gold

It’s funny because gold’s total return in 2024 is 32% – outperforming both the S&P500 and STI.

I have a decently sized exposure to gold, so this turned out to be great for investment performance.

It’s very rare to have a year in which gold performs this strongly, and to be honest I would expect a much more muted performance for gold in the next year or two.

But let’s see.

Being long China?

This one is slightly controversial, and I know many may call this a mistake.

But I run a decent sized exposure to China in my investment portfolio.

And you know what – that portion of the portfolio is up 25 – 30% this year alone.

Despite all the doom and gloom around China stocks, China stocks actually delivered very decent 2024 investment returns.

Here’s ICBC below, and you can see how the share price performed very strongly in the first half of 2024, and stayed at those levels for the rest of the year.

Throw in the 7-8% dividend yield, and that works out to pretty decent returns.

The million dollar question of course is how will China perform in 2025.

Much will depend on how much stimulus we see from policy makers, and whether we see stimulus targeted at driving consumer spending.

It’s not so straightforward because it also seems that China wants to wait to see what kind of policies we’ll see from the Trump administration, and of course good luck predicting what Trump will actually do once in office.

So while I continue to run exposure on the thinking that we may have seen a policy bottom for China (have expanded on this in recent articles), I’m not an idiot and I’m managing my position sizing towards China carefully.

Launch of Dividend Investing MasterClass – Massive Launch Discount!

If you found the discussion above useful, and want to go into further details on how to build a dividend portfolio while managing risk.

You’ll want to check out the Dividend Investing MasterClass.

The Dividend Investing MasterClass is a complete all in one course.

That teaches you the fundamentals on constructing a dividend portfolio – to achieve the cash flow you need to achieve financial freedom, while managing risk.

Whatever your stage of life, if you’ve ever wanted to build a dividend portfolio, this is the course for you.

We’re launching with a special launch promo – a huge discount from the official course price, and complimentary access to FH Premium thrown in!

Check out more details here.