Robo Advisors Singapore Market

Robo Wars: How Singapore Robo-Advisors Syfe, Endowus, and StashAway Performed in Q3 2023

Calvin Lo

Singapore robo-advisors Syfe, Endowus, and StashAway have reported their Q3 2023 performance. Let’s see how they stacked up against each other, and who came out on top. In this post, I’ll primarily be looking at respective robo-advisor’s core portfolio offerings. All 3 also offer thematic portfolios, but I won’t be comparing those.

Benchmark: MSCI All-Country World Index (ACWI)

See MSCI ACWI Index performance below for reference and comparison (from latest factsheet). Note that these returns are in USD, so figures might differ from returns in SGD (Endowus and StashAway) due to currency exchange.

I’ve captured a screenshot below, but it’s for period ending 31 Oct 2023. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the one for 30 Sep 2023 anymore.

Syfe Core Portfolios

Syfe Core Equity100 returned -2.7% in Q3 2023, which underperformed the MSCI World return of -2.5% by -20 bps. Also, Core Equity100 underperforming YTD substantially by 380 bps, returning 9.6% vs 13.4% for MSCI World index.

Read my review of Syfe Equity100

Against S&P Target Risk benchmarks, all other Core portfolios (Growth, Balanced, Defensive) have also underperformed this quarter despite these other Core portfolios having some allocation to gold.

Read: Syfe Portfolio Performance Review Q3 2023

Syfe Core portfolios’ equity allocations are generally exposed to S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 tracking ETFs (CSPX, RSP, and QQQ), with a tilt towards defensive sectors of consumer staples (XLP) and health care (XLV). Internationally, Core portfolios also have substantial exposure to Europe & Asia Pacific (EFA) and China (MCHI). In addition, Core portfolios also have an allocation to bonds (through TLT, IEF, TIP, AGG) and gold (through GLD).

Syfe REIT+ Portfolio

One other portfolio worth a mention is the Syfe REIT+ portfolio, which continues to outperform its benchmark iEdge S-REIT Leaders Index by 40 bps, as well as peer ETFs by smaller margin. The gap is more obvious when looking at YTD performance. REITs have done very poorly in Q3, but for the patient investor now might be a great buying opportunity.

Read my review of Syfe REIT+

Endowus Flagship Portfolios

Endowus Flagship Cash/SRS actually outperformed in Q3 2023. Comparing Very Aggressive (100-0) vs MSCI ACWI, Flagship outperformed by 40 bps in Q3, closing the gap in YTD performance to 130 bps.

Flagship Balanced (60-40) would probably be compared to Global 60:40 index, and Very Conservative should probably be compared to the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index. Flagship Balanced and Flagship Very Conservative both outperformed too.

Read: Endowus Q3 2023 Performance Review

Flagship CPF portfolios didn’t fare as well as Flagship Cash/SRS in Q3, underperforming benchmarks and Flagship Cash/SRS portfolios substantially. That’s quite a reversal from Q2, when Flagship CPF outperformed.

The equity funds that make up Flagship Cash/SRS are actually pretty different from Flagship CPF (didn’t look at the bond funds). One exception is Flagship Very Conservative which still managed to decline less than Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index.

Note that Flagship Cash/SRS returns differs vs Flagship CPF due to slightly different composition of funds (some funds are not approved for CPFIS). Flagship CPF only had 4 funds, 75% of which were Amundi funds. On the other hand, Flagship Cash/SRS had a mix of Amundi, iShares, and Dimensional funds. See screenshots below. Thus, the difference in performance between Flagship Cash/SRS vs CPF is not surprising after all.

Flagship Cash/SRS – Very Aggressive
Flagship CPF – Very Aggressive

StashAway General Investing Portfolios

StashAway is the easiest to evaluate, since they compare General Investing (GI) portfolio returns against respective same-risk benchmark returns side-by-side, and even compute the relative performance.

StashAway’s lower SRI GI portfolios powered by StashAway actually performed very well in Q3, outperforming their benchmarks by as much as +340 bps for the lowest SRI 6.5%. Lower SRI portfolios actually returned pretty flat which is no mean feat considering the rampage happening both in stocks and bonds in Q3. Higher SRI GI portfolios also outperformed their benchmarks, but the margin decreases as the higher the SRI goes.

I’ve not been able to do a direct comparison between GI portfolios powered by StashAway vs BlackRock, since they’re categorised differently. However, GI (BlackRock) appears to just be tracking their respective benchmarks which is nothing to shout about.

Read: Our Returns in the Third Quarter of 2023

My Thoughts

In general, core portfolios of all 3 robo-advisors have a slight defensive tilt, but have vastly different approaches to achieving that defensiveness.

Last quarter, I was surprised by StashAway’s relative outperformance, especially for their lower-SRI GI portfolios powered by StashAway. Seems like StashAway’s strength is in their lower SRI GI portfolios in a down market. Their higher SRI portfolios also outperformed last quarter, but in prior quarters performed poorly. StashAway GI portfolios powered by BlackRock, though decent, have not impressed me so far.

Syfe REIT+ also continues to impress, outperforming its benchmark and peers despite a brutal sell-off last quarter. Syfe Core portfolios were disappointing though, underperforming their benchmarks.

Endowus Flagship Cash/SRS was also impressive, outperforming its benchmarks across the board. However, I was pretty dismayed at how badly Flagship CPF performed.

Considering that Q3 2023 was a down market, aggressive investors in StashAway and Endowus Flagship Cash/SRS would’ve survived pretty well. Conservative investors in StashAway’s lower-SRI GI portfolios would’ve performed the best.

On the most aggressive end of the spectrum, StashAway GI powered by StashAway SRI 36% performed the best in Q3 with a -1.7% return, followed by StashAway GI powered by BlackRock Very Aggressive and Flagship Cash/SRS at -1.8% and -2.0% respectively.

In my personal opinion, the winner for Q3 2023 goes to….StashAway!!

So far this is the 3rd quarter I’ve tracked the performance of these 3 robo-advisors. Here are the winners so far:

Evenly matched so far this year. Would be interesting to see if any long term winner arises by tracking every quarter.

Disclosure: I’m invested in Syfe and Endowus portfolios.

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