You will build one view of your whole portfolio across every account.
Farhan has decided which account each holding belongs in. What he does not yet have is a single page that shows all of it at once: what sits where, what it adds up to, and whether the total matches the 65/35 he set in module 1. Without that page, every account looks fine on its own, and the portfolio as a whole can drift without him seeing it.
This exercise builds that page, the account map. It is one view of your whole long-term portfolio across every account, and it is the page your yearly review in module 8 will start from. Allow about 25 minutes. The figures below are Farhan's, all made-up.
Write down every account that holds long-term money: your cash brokerage account, SRS, any CPFIS investments, and anything else such as a robo-advisor account. Under each, list the holdings and their current values. Take the values from statements or apps on the same day, so the numbers are comparable, and write the date at the top.
Farhan's list is short. His cash account holds his world equity fund, worth S$39,000 after the rebalance his rule asked for in July, and his Singapore government bond fund, worth S$21,000. His SRS account holds S$10,000 of cash he has just contributed and not yet invested. His CPF holds S$70,000 across his accounts, uninvested.
Before adding up, apply the choice you made in lesson 7.3, Which money goes in which account, about your CPF balances. Either they count as part of the safe side of the portfolio, or they are left out as a separate base. Farhan leaves his out, because his OA may pay for a flat, so his long-term total is S$39,000 plus S$21,000 plus S$10,000, which is S$70,000.
Then add up across accounts by asset type, ignoring which account each holding is in. Farhan has S$39,000 in shares, S$21,000 in bonds and S$10,000 in cash. As percentages of S$70,000, that is about 55.7% shares, 30% bonds and 14.3% cash.
Compare that with the target. At 65/35, S$70,000 should be S$45,500 in shares and S$24,500 in bonds. So he is about S$6,500 short in shares and S$3,500 short in bonds, and the S$10,000 of SRS cash is the gap. Cash sitting uninvested in SRS was invisible when he looked at each account separately. On the map it stands out.
Next to each account, write the rules that limit what you can do with it. For SRS, write the lock-up until your statutory retirement age, the tax on withdrawal, and the products your operator allows, all from lesson 7.1. For CPF, write the amount that must stay in the OA, the product list and the interest you give up, from lesson 7.2. For your cash account, write "no lock-up", and any platform fees.
This column is what stops you making a plan your accounts will not allow. It also tells you where you can rebalance freely, which is usually only your cash account.
Now decide where your next contributions should go to move the total towards target, using the method from lesson 6.3, Rebalance cheaply with new contributions. The difference here is that new money arrives in specific accounts, so the decision is per account.
Farhan's SRS cash should go into shares, because SRS suits long-term shares, as lesson 7.3 explained. He checks his operator's list and finds an SGX-listed world equity fund it allows. If he invests all S$10,000 there, his shares rise to S$49,000, which is 70% of S$70,000, with bonds at 30%. That overshoots his share target by five points.
So his cash account steers the rest. He directs his monthly S$1,000 into the bond fund. If prices stay flat, after six months his bonds reach S$27,000 out of S$76,000, which is about 35.5%, with shares at about 64.5%, close to target. After that, his monthly money goes back to the normal 65/35 split. He writes all of this in one line at the bottom of the map: "SRS cash into the world fund now. Next six months of new money into bonds, then back to 65/35."
A finished map fits on one page. It lists each account with its holdings and values, shows your total allocation across all accounts against your target, records the rules of each account in a short column, and ends with the line saying where the next contributions go. It carries a date at the top, because it is a snapshot, and you will redraw it every year.
If your map shows something you did not expect, such as cash sitting idle in one account or a share weight far from target once everything is added up, that is the exercise working. Draw yours before you change anything, so you can see the starting point clearly.
Submit an account map showing holdings by account, your total allocation against target, and where the next contributions go.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).