Since I started investing at the age of 20, my investment portfolio have gone through 3 major revamps as follows:
- 2012 – Started my investment journey with government bonds, T-Bills and ETFs
- 2016 – Moved on to investing in individual Singapore stocks and REITs
- 2020 – Started investing in US stocks in addition to my Singapore counters
And in 2025, I would be making the 4th major change to my investment portfolio, this time by adding Bitcoin and fine-tuning the allocation structure of my portfolio. Despite these supposed changes, the core focus of my investment portfolio would still be to provide consistent dividends and growth.
So with that, let’s get into the thinking behind my intended portfolio change.
Why the change?
If I were to summarise my reasons for making the portfolio changes to one sentence, it would be to ‘have a modern portfolio that delivers consistent dividends and capital gains‘.
Positioning to capture income and growth

When I first started investing into individual counters in 2016, it was all about getting consistent and increasing dividends year after year. This was also the reason why I only invested into counters on the Singapore market, with an emphasis on dividend stocks and REITs.
It was not only until 2020 when I started investing into US stocks did I then realised the amount of capital gains I was missing out on. It was also my investments in the US market which got me my first multibaggers in the form of Nvidia and Tesla.
Thus, having experienced the positive effects of both dividend and growth stocks, I felt that an ideal investment portfolio should have both aspects, and exposure to some of the world’s largest companies.
Diversifying risk and optimising returns

Due to my emphasis on dividend investing previously, my current portfolio is really REIT heavy. This was a disaster from 2022 till date given the high interest rate environment. Thankfully, the capital gains on my US stock investments and dividends received more than covered for the paper losses on my REIT investments.
The underperformance of my REIT counters over the past 2 years or so laid bare the negatives of what overconcentration can do to the overall performance of a portfolio. Hence, I wanted to build a more balanced portfolio that can perform well in various market conditions.
Besides just building a more balanced portfolio, I also wanted to invest into ‘newer’ assets that reflects the current trend of the investing landscape. Yes I am referring to Bitcoin here and also cryptocurrencies in general.
While many investors might label cryptocurrencies as a scam, I feel that as investors we should adapt to the circumstances and position our portfolios to benefit from developing trends. This is especially so when the historical average annualized returns of Bitcoin has hugely outperformed that of the stock market. Of course the volatility and potential drawdown is also much higher.

Source: Curvo
Also, with the current influx of newer and younger investors, coupled with investing becoming more mainstream in general, I feel that the investing landscape and temperament has shifted considerably from what it was a decade ago. Thus, by positioning to benefit from these trends, it might just provide outsized capital gains to my investment portfolio.
The changes I’m making
So having gone through my rationale for making the changes to my portfolio, let’s now look at what exactly these changes would be like.
Investing into companies that fuel the future
In order to capture consistent capital gains for my portfolio, I believe that the best way would be to invest in companies that form the backbone of future or growing industries/sectors. This is consistent with the picks and shovels investing strategy.

Take for instance the AI industry, instead of investing in companies that provide the AI platform or services, you would invest in companies that produce the necessary equipment for AI to function instead. This means investing into companies that produces GPUs, semiconductor chips, networking switches or even the underlying internet network infrastructure itself.
By investing in such ‘backbone’ companies, investors need not bet on the success of such future industries, they only need to rely on the continued demand and growth of these newer industries/sectors. This reduces risk in a sense while still allowing investors to ride the wave of growing or emerging trends.
Having more defensive companies in my portfolio
While investing in companies that fuel the future can provide the opportunity of outsized returns, I think it is also wise to balance it with slightly more defensive companies. It is very much like building a football team where balance is crucial to winning matches.
Defensive companies in this aspect refers to those that produce the goods/services that everyone needs regardless of economic conditions. This could be companies in the financial, healthcare and consumer staple sectors.
The idea of having defensive companies in my portfolio is so that in the event of a market downturn, my overall portfolio returns would not take such a huge negative hit as compared to if I were to invest purely into emerging or technology companies.
Including Bitcoin into my portfolio

Now this portion of change might be controversial to some, after years of contemplation and on-off buying/selling of Bitcoin, I have finally decided to include it as a mainstay in my portfolio.
A large part behind my inclusion of Bitcoin into my portfolio is due to its wider adoption/acceptance by institutions (and governments), its in-built inflationary hedge and also adapting to a new form of investing landscape.
Given the performance of Bitcoin over the past few years, the amount of speculative trading action that comes with it and future possible tailwinds with regards to adoption, I think there is a good chance that it will continue to provide outsized returns to investors.
Of course the volatility that comes with it is insane, which is why right-sizing is so important, along with the respective entry prices. Hence, I would only start buying Bitcoin at specific support levels.
My ideal investment portfolio allocation (for the next 5 years)
To end of this article I thought it would be interesting to include what I would like my portfolio to be over the next 5 years. As usual this is not financial advice and also not a recommendation to buy/sell any stocks or asset class. You do what’s best for yourself based on your own risk tolerance and research.
I would mainly be right-sizing my investment portfolio by industries and sectors while also including the companies on my watchlist or those I have invested in.
- Cryptocurrencies (5%) – Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency I am considering.
- EV (5%) – With regards to EVs, I was previously invested in Tesla though I have already divested it. Moving forth, I might consider Tesla, BYD or CATL.
- AI (10%) – For AI-related stocks I am mainly invested into Nvidia right now. I might also consider TSMC or Broadcom, but would need to do more research into these companies.
- Banking (10%) – For banking or financial stocks, I am mainly considering DBS.
- Consumer staple (10%) – This would be a new sector I am including into my portfolio. Companies I’m looking at would be Walmart, Costco or Sheng Siong.
- Healthcare (10%) – My exposure to the healthcare sector would be from ParkwayLife REIT. This would also be the only REIT in my entire portfolio.
- Networking (10%) – For networking infrastructure, I’m currently invested in China Mobile and Arista Networks.
- Payment services (10%) – For payment services, I am considering either Visa or Mastercard.
- Cash (30%) – Half of my cash holdings would be in SGD, which would be used for my daily expenses and savings. The another half would be in USD, mainly for margin requirements for my trading activities.
As you can see from my portfolio allocation, it is not overly aggressive or defensive in nature. I think this allocation allows me to grow my net worth at a steady pace while letting me sleep comfortably at night. At the end of the day, I think that is the most important thing when it comes to investing.