#growing with Moo Moo, #growing for a better life

The first half of 2023 was all about #growing with Moo Moo. I did a lot of things that are new and even some that push me out of my comfort zone. I started learning and applying Modern Portfolio Theory and found a better way to invest in $SPDR S&P 500 ETF(SPY.US)$ by leveraging on $SPDR Gold ETF(GLD.US)$ and $Invesco QQQ Trust(QQQ.US)$, tested out using $Gold Trust Ishares(IAU.US)$ to hedge against the super volatile $USD(USDindex.FX)$, and even did a live stream to teach about options. It has been an amazing ride up in both my portfolio and my personal growth.

I reviewed how and why I used options in each of my trades on $Alphabet-A(GOOGL.US)$, $Futu Holdings Ltd(FUTU.US)$, $ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ ETF(SQQQ.US)$, $Grab Holdings(GRAB.US)$, $Palantir(PLTR.US)$, Credit Suisse (Collapsed), $NIO Inc(NIO.US)$, $Twitter (Delisted)(TWTR.US)$ and $TRICIDA INC(TCDAQ.US)$. Be in wins or losses, I showed them all, hoping that everyone will be able to learn from both my successes and mistakes. So if you are interested to learn, do click on the post link below:

The base case SPY portfolio, which showing the portfolio of passive investors who had been listening to Warren Buffet or other YouTubers, and invested only in $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ had grown 13.92%. However, according to MPT, this is not the most optimal portfolio as it is not optimised based on the risk reward potential. The most optimal portfolio had grown 22.83% and the portfolio with the same risk, higher reward structure had grown 26.87%. That's impressive and I had learn something new. If you like to learn more about MPT, you can refer to it in this post: Explained Simply: Modern Portfolio Theory, Optimising Risk and Reward of your portfolio

USD hedge with gold
The last bit of growth, is with me exploring the idea to use gold as a hedge against $USD(USDindex.FX)$. As I'm a Singaporean, USD isn't the currency that I truly need. Shops around doesn't accept USD, they want SGD. However, in the past 3 years, USD had been super volatile. It went up and down 10% like nobody business. So I need to find a cheaper way to hedge against such volatility, and Gold ( $Gold Trust Ishares(IAU.US)$) seems to have that potential.

Looking at how Gold and USD seems to have some inverse correlation recently, I tried to test out my hypothesis. I saw that when USD goes up, Gold price starts to fall, and vice versa. There are also so many news about de-dollarisation and how USD could slowing lose its value as the US had been exporting inflation by printing them out of control and weaponising USD like crazy in the past few year. So when USD starts going up, I started to buy Gold with existing USD as it became cheaper. Hoping that if USD fall, the Gold price will rise up to cover that loss. I made a post about it too here: Lucky to have started adding Gold into my portfolio in February to hedge against USD.