Very confused

[ghodlin]

Hi All,

I'm brand new to investing. Opened an online account and deposited 8m yen. Bought a range of products over the last 2-3 months, trying to create a balanced portfolio and following different bits of advice I've picked up. Anyway, I can't really understand the statement which I'll share with you now:



7,293,903

Separalely, not listed here is a 500,000 purchase of gold that shows up today as 470,756.

7,293,903 + 470,756 = 7,764,659

If I'm down 112,329 and factoring in the gold purchase fees (about 15,000 I think), where's the rest of the deficit? Fees? Exchange rate fluctuation? More importantly, within Rakuten Shoken, what's the best way to see that full analysis and view?

This is probably blindingly obvious to people here, so cut me some slack! Would love advice in the simplest jargon-free language possible

Incidentally the bonds that are underperforming so badly are all overseas ones, with the worst being 欧州投資銀行　トルコリラ建債券　8.75％　that's down 20% Was it foolish to buy so many of these? All six overseas bonds are down!

Thanks for your help.

[fools_gold]

From the grey menu bar near the top, hover over 口座管理. From there you can click 保有商品・資産状況確認 to see a more detailed breakdown of your holdings, and 取引履歴（商品別売買履歴）to view your purchase history including commissions.

High yielding bonds from countries like Brazil and Turkey are quite popular investments in Japan. However, buying bonds from a particular country can be quite risky because political and economic instability can lead to default and sudden swings in the currency.

[jcc]

You may want to check your realized gains/losses 実現損益 under the 保有商品一覧 screen. Perhaps you already sold some stuff at a loss? The 評価利益 is showing you gains/losses on things you currently own you have yet to sell.

The purchase history may include something on fees you've payed. You really shouldn't be buying frontloaded funds(funds that have a buying commission) though.

The turkish bonds? That was probably a poor idea. Not all bonds are equal. Bonds are still open to currency risk and political risk, and any high gain bond is going to be open to a lot of it. The bonds that are currently considered a safe hedge are things like US, Japanese and European government bonds but they give much lower returns.

Paying 3% to be able to buy the gold also seems like a poor idea. Perhaps investing in an etf pegged to gold value(GLD for example) could have worked better?

It looks then like you've lost ~200k yen, an expensive lesson. It might be time that you do some study before throwing in more cash. This site includes a further reading list which starts out with this pdf: https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf which includes several other books to read

If you're going to invest your life savings, you should probably take the time to make sure you know what you're doing because the one person who is best incentivised to make sure it's done right is you. Randomly taking advice from people on the internet as well-meaning as they may be can result in outcomes that are not what you were looking for, especially when we don't know your risk tolerance, objectives and whatnot

[ghodlin]

Thanks jcc and fools_gold for the responses.

Following your advice on navigating the Rakuten site, I've been able to check the fees and these are minimal. I haven't made any sales yet. I can't explain the deficit noted in my OP. There appeared to be an unaccounted 100,000 円 yesterday. But checking the data again just now it shows:

Portfolio total: 7,329,339 円 [-171,828 円]
Gold: 470,000 円 [-30,000 円]

I'm at least able to account for the 8 million invested today. Still, a depressing performance and getting worse daily.

I don't have time or motivation to study so I'll seek some expert advice and/or go with robo investment like Theo which I'm also using.
I'll also keep reading these forums. Thanks again.

[Dan]

Have you taken currency fluctuations into account?

[adamu]

I don't have time or motivation to study so I'll seek some expert advice

Be prepared to get fleeced. I think the only way to invest effectively is to put some time in otherwise you will either shoot yourself in the foot or get exploited by "advisors" and fund managers taking a chunk of your portfolio every year regardless of whether you make a gain or loss.

Check out this article: http://monevator.com/is-active-investin ... -sum-game/

[jcc]

I don't have time or motivation to study so I'll seek some expert advice and/or go with robo investment like Theo which I'm also using.
I'll also keep reading these forums. Thanks again.

Let me motivate you a bit then.

8million that's what you started with. A robo advisor will take 1% of that every year and an "expert" will take as much as they can get away with. Either way, minimum 1%, or 80000 yen an year.

In 10 years that's .8 mil(it's actually a lot more because you would hopefully be getting some returns, compounding interests and whatnot)

Would that 1mil not be enough to motivate you to get this right? The reading list for if you can is 7 books(though honestly, I feel the great depression diary is not necessary as it's really repetitive and pretty heavy on the speculation of the author). I mean if someone would pay you 1mil to read 6-7 books would you not do that?

In reality, if you think about how long you'll be in this, learning this shit right will save you a lot more than 1mil, but it will also help you get a good idea of how much you need to save and how to adjust your portfolio in line with your ability to take on risk

With that said, if you really don't want to do it, use a robo-adviser, at least those are going to screw you over less than an in-person one(though recently they've started packaging in their own higher-fee products...)

[StockBeard]

the one person who is best incentivised to make sure it's done right is you. Randomly taking advice from people on the internet as well-meaning as they may be can result in outcomes that are not what you were looking for, especially when we don't know your risk tolerance, objectives and whatnot

That's 100% true, however I'd say we could still easily share portfolios that are popular in this community, and why they are popular?

In believe a lot of us are familiar with the recommendations at bogleheads, And I personally try to follow their advice, within the constraints of what JP has to offer. ( https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios and https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Boglehe ... philosophy )

In particular:
1) invest with simplicity by limiting the number of funds you use
2) reduce fees by using low cost ETFs
3) Diversify
4) don't have too much or too little risk (choose the right bond/stock balance that works for you)


Below is my personal situation and choices, they might not apply to anyone reading this. In particular, I'm not suggesting OP should change their current strategy. I can barely read Japanese and have no idea if the screenshot above represents a balanced portfolio or something terrible. However the mention of "turkish bonds" above doesn't sound like this is a balanced strategy to me. So as others, I recommend reading a bit before investing more.

I have an account in the US where I do most of my investments, but in Japan, this is what my wife is going with (heavily based on a discussion I had with Ben a long time ago). 70% stock, 30% BOND/REIT, trying to spread internationally but also having some JP centric stuff to :

Bonds/REIT (30%)
10% of Sumitomo JP Bond Index (https://site0.sbisec.co.jp/marble/fund/ ... rch_result )
10% of NISSEI Foreign bond index (https://site0.sbisec.co.jp/marble/fund/ ... rch_result )
10% of Japan REIT ( http://www.jpx.co.jp/equities/products/ ... 1345-j.pdf )

Stocks (70%)
10% of Maxis Topix(1348) (http://www.jpx.co.jp/equities/products/ ... 1348-j.pdf )
60% of Maxis kokusai (1550) ( http://www.jpx.co.jp/equities/products/ ... 1550-j.pdf )

Again, what my family are doing should not be taken as advice to someone I don't know at all. But, bottom line: my thing is 70% stock, 30% bonds/reit , spread internationally (but with exposure to Japan) and on broad indexes, minimize fees.

One last thing to add: I wouldn't freak out after 3 months in the market. If that's the kind of horizon you have to check whether you're doing ok or not, you'll be very disappointed and might make some costly mistakes.

[jcc]

Bonds/REIT (30%)
10% of Sumitomo JP Bond Index (https://site0.sbisec.co.jp/marble/fund/ ... rch_result )
10% of NISSEI Foreign bond index (https://site0.sbisec.co.jp/marble/fund/ ... rch_result )
10% of Japan REIT ( http://www.jpx.co.jp/equities/products/ ... 1345-j.pdf )

I find it very curious you'd group REIT's with your bonds. REIT's are not a low risk low return investment.

I mean, you're working with the risk of a 90/10 portfolio here seem to be representing it as a 70/30 portfolio? The bogleheads example portfolios bear this out, grouping the REITs in the stock part.

[StockBeard]

Fair point. I see this as a "diversification from Stock".
Which is the other 10% you're categorizing as "risky" in there?