Putting 300K Won a Month into US ETFs Since April — Mid-Point Check
Since April, I've been putting 300,000 KRW into US ETFs on a monthly basis like an installment savings plan, and it's already been four months. For diversification, I'm buying in a 70% VOO and 30% SCHD split.
My current return is about +3.2%. It's not much, but I'm just letting it sit. That said, SCHD feels like it's been lagging lately, so I'm a bit torn. The dividend yield is nice, but the growth potential is weak, which makes me wonder if I should switch to QQQ instead.
Does anyone else run the same combination? Or would a more conservative strategy that just protects the principal and earns modest returns be better? I'd appreciate any advice.
5 answers
Agreed, if VOO is at 70%, it's indeed stable.
I also switched from SCHD to QQQ, and increasing my growth stock allocation made it less frustrating. That said, there was the fun of getting small dividends regularly. Now I'm just looking at the overall returns.
4 months is too early. Don't judge the returns of an ETF savings plan on a 1-year basis—look at it in 5-year terms. It's true that SCHD has been underperforming lately, but there are also periods when dividend stocks provide a defensive buffer when the market is down. For now, it's a good approach to maintain your current allocation while adding a small amount of QQQ separately to run in parallel.
Disagree. It's already well known that SCHD has weak growth. But we invest in it because the dividends are good, so why worry about that now? And QQQ is heavily affected by exchange rates and interest rates, so isn't it risky to switch now? A +3.2% return over 4 months just means it followed the market.
If you want to keep your principal safe, just stick with a deposit lol.