$1.368 mil Daedalus Income Portfolio Update – March 2025

Here is the update for my Daedalus portfolio for March 2025. If work is not too busy, I will try to provide an update where possible.

I explain how I constructed this portfolio in Deconstructing Daedalus Income Portfolio. You might not understand what I wrote below if you haven’t read this post.

All my personal planning notes such as income planning, insurance planning, investment & portfolio construction will be under my personal notes section of this blog. You can also find the past updates in the section.

Portfolio Change Since Last Update

The portfolio was valued at $1.501 million at the end of February and is at $1.456 million at the end of March.

We reported a portfolio change of $45,000 for March 2025.

As of 5th April 2025, the portfolio is valued at $1.368 million.

Here are the primary security holding returns for the month-to-date and year-to-date:

The table that shows the fund holdings denotes the month-to-date and year-to-date performance of the funds that I own, against Major Index ETFs. The Major Index ETFs is present to compare the performance. I do not own the major index ETFs per say just to be clear.

The returns of all funds are in USD. This includes the performance of the Dimensional funds, which I use the returns of the USD share class so that the returns are comparable. I have also listed the major index ETF performance for comparison.

Markets continue to have a rough March. If you read my post Is the US Market Going into a Death Spiral, you would understand the reason. We continue to be in a period of weakness due to options derivatives positioning, relative to other periods in the year. There were no supporting flows and the flows only dissipate after the expiry of options at the end of the Friday of March. But since March is a major options expiry window, there are still much large derivative forces in play.

Generally, the market needs fundamental catalysts to go down and the main one is the uncertainty what will happen for the April 2nd Liberation day.

Global, Global + Emerging Markets, Emerging Markets, Aggregate Bonds and Short-term fixed income all did better than the funds 100% US focus. The Small and Value premium continues to show up.

The main drag to the portfolio is USSC, which was down 5.7%. Still the performance was much better than the Russell 2000 and S&P 600 ETF. AVGS, or the Avantis Global Small Cap Value and Dimensional Global Targeted Value did slightly better because 30% of AVGS is in international small cap with Japan and UK being larger proportions and they have done well. We can use the same explanation to attribute the better performance of Global Targeted Value as well.

I should review the performance of JPGL, IFSW, AVGC, GGRA together because they are multifactor funds on the MSCI World region. JPGL’s performance stands out in a good way mainly because the fund has more of an equal-weighting on the sectorial level. In a world where the mega-caps are not doing so well and there are pockets of good performance in other large caps, JPGL will do better. GGRA or the WisdomTree Global Quality Dividend Growth ETF did the worse mainly because out of all 4 this and IFSW are the more profitability factor driven funds and since the more expensive companies global did not do well for the month, their performance have been poorer.

Avantis Emerging Markets, or AVEM continue to do better than the EIMI index, shows that value and profitability work very well in the Emerging Markets. Emerging Markets Small Cap also did better for the month.

The portfolio lost 0.50% due to the weakening SGD against the USD.

Role of Portfolio

The goal of the portfolio is to provide consistent, inflation-adjusted income for my essential and basic spending. The portfolio is sized based on a conservative 2.0-2.5% Initial Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) so that the income can last even considering challenging historical sequences such as the Great Depression, external war and 30 years of high inflation averaging 5.5-6% p.a.

The timeframe that the income stream to be planned for: 60 years to Perpetual

I am currently not drawing down the portfolio.

For further reading on:

1. My notes regarding my essential spending.
2. My notes regarding my basic spending.
3. My elaboration of the Safe Withdrawal Rate: Article | YouTube Video

Based on current portfolio value, the amount of monthly passive income that can be conservatively generated from the portfolio is

The lower the SWR, the more capital is needed, but the more resilient the income is.

Nature of the Income I Planned for

Different income strategies will give you different characteristics of income streams. They can be more consistent or volatile, inflation-adjusted or non-inflation-adjusted, for limited duration or perpetual.

An income stream based on the Safe Withdrawal Rate framework is consistent and inflation-adjusted, and if we use a low initial Safe Withdrawal Rate of 2.0-2.5%, the income stream leans towards a long duration to perpetual.

Here is a visual illustration of how the income stream will be based on the current portfolio value:

The income for the initial year is based on a 2% Safe Withdrawal Rate. The income for subsequent years is based on the inflation rate in the prior year (refer to the bottom pane of inflation in the previous year). If the inflation is high, the income scales up and if there is deflation, the income is reduced.

Investment Strategy & Philosophy

After trying my best to learn how to invest for a while, the portfolio expresses my thoughts about investing at this point.

The portfolio is run in a

1. Strategic: allocation doesn’t change by short-term events.
2. Systematic: rules/decision-tree-based implemented either myself or an external manager.
3. Low-cost: investment implementation cost is kept reasonably low both on the fund level and also on the custodian level.
4. Passive: I spend relatively little effort mentally considering investments and also action-wise.

You can read more in this note article: Deconstructing Daedalus My Passive Income Investment Portfolio for My Essential & Basic Spending.

Portfolio Change Since Last Update (Usually Last Month)

I reallocated $30,000 from USSC to AVGS this month. I will continue to reallocate more of USSC to AVGS so that the small cap allocation is more global.

Current Holdings – By Dollar Value and Percentages

The following table is grouped based on general strategy, whether they are:

1. Fixed Income / Cash to reduce volatility.
2. Systematic Passive, which tries to capture the market risk in a systematic manner.
3. Systematic Active, which tries to capture various proven risk premiums such as value, momentum, quality, high profitability, and size in a systematic manner.
4. Long-term sectorial positions.

Portfolio by Account Location

Portfolio by Region of Securities

Portfolio by Fund, Cash or Individual Security

Portfolio by Strategy.

Main Custodians

The current custodians are:

1. Cash: Interactive Brokers LLC (not SG)
2. SRS: iFAST Financial

If you want to trade these stocks I mentioned, you can open an account with Interactive Brokers. Interactive Brokers is the leading low-cost and efficient broker I use and trust to invest & trade my holdings in Singapore, the United States, London Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They allow you to trade stocks, ETFs, options, futures, forex, bonds and funds worldwide from a single integrated account.

You can read more about my thoughts about Interactive Brokers in this Interactive Brokers Deep Dive Series, starting with how to create & fund your Interactive Brokers account easily.

Kyith is the Owner and Sole Writer behind Investment Moats. Readers tune in to Investment Moats to learn and build stronger, firmer wealth foundations, how to have a Passive investment strategy, know more about investing in REITs and the nuts and bolts of Active Investing.

Readers also follow Kyith to learn how to plan well for Financial Security and Financial Independence.

Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.

You can view Kyith’s current portfolio here, which uses his Free Google Stock Portfolio Tracker.

His investment broker of choice is Interactive Brokers, which allows him to invest in securities from different exchanges all over the world, at very low commission rates, without custodian fees, near spot currency rates.

You can read more about Kyith here.