My investment strategies

I spread out my investment across different strategies at the moment, so that hopefully in the next 5 to 10 years, I will have first hand experience on which one works better. Another reason is that it is still scary to put all you money into one strategy (e.g. Permanent Portfolio as  the actions you do is really counter-intuitive/scary). However, there is one thing common among all the different strategies, and that is not to buy in heavily on the asset class which price has gone up significantly. This is much easier to put in action compared to selling and locking in profits after price has run up signifcantly.

The following is a brief description of what I am vested in:

1) Unit Trusts consisting of bonds and equities

2) Stocks, which contains REITS and STI ETF only at this moment

3) Modified Permanent Portfolio made up of US ETFs

Unit Trusts

My plan for this investment class is to use Mebane Faber Timing model as a guide to determine my buy-sell decision. As mentioned before, this investment class also contain "Short Term Bonds" which serves as alternative to my bank deposits. I'll try to allocate funds in excess of my 6-month salary into the "Short Term Bonds". They will also serve as opportunity funds to buy into equities when there is a crash.

Stocks

Have dabbled/speculate/invest a bit in these since University days. Don't really want invest heavily in individual stocks at current levels. Only actively buying 100-200 shares STI ETF about once a month over the past year. I prefer to wait for market crash (be it 5 years or 10 years) before investing significantly in it, for margin of safety.

Modified Permanent Portfolio

Ideal allocation:

25% US Equity (VTI)

25% World Stocks (VEU)

20% Gold (IAU)

30% 20+ year Treasury Bond (TLT)

I started this around Jun 2012, and initially I bought into the 4 different asset class every month. After a while, I realise this is not very effective, and hence decided to buy in only every 6 months. I last rebalanced in around April 2013, after which gold crashed. As of now, profits can be considered negligible since the Bonds and Gold asset class has negated the gains achieved by the equity classes. I'll have to wait till about October before rebalancing it again.

I will stress again that being diversified on different asset classes makes your overall portfolio less volatile, compared to say 100% invested in stocks. An indirect effect is that you will be affected less emotionally during large price swings, as your overall portfolio value will not swing as much. This will prevent you from making any rash decision. Investing after all shouldn't involve our emotion.