$1.448 mil Daedalus Income Portfolio Update

Here is the update for my Daedalus portfolio for May 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 and Why I Currently Invest in These Funds for Daedalus. 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 $1.413 million at the end of April and is at $1.441 million at the end of May.

We reported a portfolio change of $28,000 for May 2025.

The portfolio is valued in SGD because that is the currency that I would most likely be spending on.

As of 4th June 2025, the portfolio is valued at $1.448 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. Just to be clear, I do not own the major index ETFs and you should see the top table as what I own.

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.

The month of May have been good to the market as it continues to rebound.

United States equities did better than international equities.

Despite the better US performance, international small caps actually did better than US small caps. This explains the better performance of the Avantis Global Small Cap Value (AVGS), SPDR MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap (EMSD) over the SPDR MSCI USA Small Cap Value Weighted (USSC).

Out of my 4 global multifactor funds, Avantis Global Equity (AVGC) and iShares Edge MSCI World Multifactor UCITS (IFSW) did better. Turns out IFSW is quite the beast since they have changed their methodology (I might write about this in a separate post).

Avantis is doing better than Dimensional for the month of May, both in the small/mid cap space and the global large cap space.

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.

The chart below shows the US Yield curve at the start of May and at the end of May:

The curve would contextualize part of the performance of iShares Core Global Aggregate Bond. The ETF is a portfolio of fixed income with about 6.5 years duration. Duration measures the sensitivity of the change in price as interest rate changes. We can observe the the yield curve have shifted up over the month generally. This explains the negative return for the month. The negative movement in market interest rates are compensated by the coupons received during the period.

The portfolio lost 1.15% due to the weakening USD against the SGD.

Role of Portfolio

The goal of the portfolio is to generate steady, inflation-adjusted income to cover my essential living expenses. It’s built using a conservative initial withdrawal rate of 2.0–2.5%, which is designed to hold up even under extremely tough market conditions — including scenarios like the Great Depression, prolonged periods of high inflation (averaging 5.5–6% over 30 years), or major global conflicts. In other words, it’s stress-tested to withstand some of the worst financial environments in history.

The income needs to last: from today (age 45) for the rest of your life — potentially forever.

I am currently not drawing down the portfolio.

For further reading on:

My notes regarding my essential spending.
My notes regarding my basic spending.
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 stream is.

Nature of the Income I Planned for

Generally, different income strategies produce different types of income streams. They can vary by:

Consistency: Some provide steady income, others fluctuate over time
Inflation Protection: Some adjust with inflation, others remain fixed
Duration: Some last for a set number of years, others are designed to last indefinitely (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

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

Portfolio Change Since Last Update (Usually Last Month)

There were zero moves in the month.

Current Holdings – By Dollar Value and Percentages

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

Fixed Income / Cash to reduce volatility.
Systematic Passive, which tries to capture the market risk in a systematic manner.
Systematic Active, which tries to capture various proven risk premiums such as value, momentum, quality, high profitability, and size in a systematic manner.
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:

Cash: Interactive Brokers LLC (not SG)
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.