Write a one-page investment policy statement that covers your whole long-term portfolio.
Open every sheet you have made since module 1 and lay them out where you can see them. Set aside about an hour. You are going to turn them into a single page called an investment policy statement, or IPS. It is a signed, dated, one-page document that says how your long-term money is invested and how you will run it. It covers the whole long-term portfolio: allocation, funds, rules and accounts, written in plain sentences.
The page is for anyone who might pick it up, and that includes you in a few years. It should be short enough to reread in five minutes. It should also be specific enough that two different people reading it would make the same decisions on the same day. Everything on it should already be in your sheets. If you find a gap while writing, such as a rule you never set, go back to the lesson that covers it and settle it there before you carry on.
Farhan is an invented learner who has followed the course alongside you. When he started, he held one world equity ETF and some idle cash. He had no bonds, so he had no idea what bonds were for. He now has a folder of sheets, and each one is a decision with a reason next to it. In this project he turns that folder into one page. Yours is the same project: set aside about an hour, open every sheet you have made since module 1, and work through the steps below.
Use the headings you wrote in lesson 8.1, "What goes in an investment policy statement". The first headings hold your decisions from modules 1 to 5. Under them, write your goals and horizon in one sentence. Then add the one-line allocation from lesson 1.4, with the bad year figure updated to today's values. It may be higher than the figure you first wrote, because your long-term money has grown since then.
Next, list each index from your lesson 2.4 index map with the fund you chose for it in lesson 3.5. Beside each fund, give its share class from lesson 4.3 and the reason in a few words. End the section with your home bias and currency rules from lesson 5.4, copied word for word.
Farhan's Step 1 section is six lines long. His allocation line says his long-term money is S$70,000 (a made-up figure), held at 65% shares and 35% bonds. In a bad year with shares down 30%, he expects about S$13,650 to disappear on paper, and he will not sell. That S$13,650 is higher than the figure he wrote in module 1 because his long-term money has grown.
This section holds the operating rules from modules 6 and 7. Write them as sentences on the page. The sheets themselves go behind it as attachments.
Start with the rebalancing rule from lesson 6.2, copied word for word. Directly under it, add the note to self you wrote in lesson 6.4, "Test your rule on a made-up crash". Then cut the account map from lesson 7.4 down to a sentence or two. It should say which account holds what, whether CPF counts, and where new money goes first. Farhan's says, in substance, that his shares sit in SRS and his cash account, his bonds sit in his cash account, CPF is not counted, and new money goes to whichever asset is furthest below target. That is enough detail for the account section.
After the accounts, write your contribution plan: how much you invest, how often, and through which account. Close the section with the order for drawing from your accounts, from lesson 8.1.
Copy in your rules for falls and booms from lesson 8.2, "Rules for when markets fall and when they boom". Name the person you will talk to and the waiting period you will keep before you act. Below them, list the things you will not do. Then add your yearly review date and the checklist from lesson 8.3.
Once the page is drafted, read the whole thing aloud. Take out anything that sounds like a forecast, such as "markets always recover". Replace anything vague, such as "rebalance when needed", with the actual rule. If you hit a line you know you would not follow on a bad day, rewrite it until you would.
Sign the page and date it. The formality makes it feel like a promise to yourself, and the date shows how old each decision is. Under your signature, write the date of your next yearly review. Put that date in your calendar now, with a reminder a week before.
Keep the page where you can find it quickly in a panic. You could print it and keep it in a drawer, pin it in a notes app, or save it next to your broker login details. Attach the supporting sheets behind it: your allocation draft, index map, comparison sheet with sources and dates, home and currency rules, crash test, and account map.
Farhan's finished page has one crossed-out line, from when he changed his bond index in module 5, with the date written beside it. A handwritten note at the bottom names his sister as the person he calls before he breaks a rule. He signs it on a Sunday evening and puts the next review date in his calendar.
Your page is done when it fits on one page and passes all three of these tests:
A stranger could run your portfolio from it for a year without asking you anything. On the worst day of a crash, you would know what to do in under five minutes. Every line traces back to a sheet with the working behind it.
The page does not need to be elegant, and it will not be the final version. Each yearly review may change a line or two, and a major life event may change more. Changes are fine as long as each one goes through the review with its reason written down. From now on, run your money from this written page rather than from the mood of the week.
Sign and date your one-page investment policy statement, attach the supporting sheets from earlier modules and submit it.
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