Investing September 17, 2026 0 Comments

Unlocking the Mystery: Why Every $1 Million SG & US Stock Portfolio Tells a Completely Different Story—And What It Means for Your Wealth Strategy

So, you’ve amassed a cool $1 million in shares, half in Singapore, half in the U.S., and now you’re eyeballing that big leap into retirement within the next few years. Sounds straightforward, right? Not quite. The million-dollar question is: how much can you realistically withdraw each year without blinking an eye—or worse, watching that nest egg dwindle alarmingly fast? This isn’t just about the math; it’s about understanding the wild roller coaster of dividend growth, the unpredictable nature of markets, and the personal shuffle each portfolio demands. I got this same question from a reader freshly stepping into these waters, curious about translating historical dividend growth data into a real-world, safe income plan. But here’s the kicker—no two portfolios are carbon copies, and lurking under that $1 million are layers of variables that can make or break your retirement dream. Let’s unravel this together, dive into the art of drawing a conservative income, and talk about the tricky terrain of portfolio uniqueness—because this stuff isn’t just numbers; it’s your life on the line. LEARN MORE

I’ve got this comment from my last article on 155 years of real dividend growth rates:

Thanks for the writeup. Informative. I am 62 years young & pretty much planning to retire with annual drawdowns from my $1M+ investments (essentially shares both in SIN & US) next 3 years onwards. So what would the take from your article suggest.

You know… the take from my article was:

If you are a dividend investor, or a person planning to have dividend income in retirement, the data will show you that there are more variability in dividend growth:

What is a good dividend growth rate to use, if you wish to use it?

Even if you use it, acknowledge that growth can be rather varied.

Also acknowledge that dividend growth after inflation may be zero (and that may be okay. Perhaps a lesson for another day)

I’m not sure if what this gentleman provided is enough for me to actually form any opinion let alone any suggestions.

I suppose he is asking for my comments purely based on a $1 million investment portfolio. He did say shares so I take it that he doesn’t have any managed investments in the form of unit trusts and ETFs.

My usually default answer would be that everything translate to the Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR) framework.

Plan to start drawing a conservative initial income, relative to the value of your portfolio and in this case it’s $1M.

This is what the SWR tries to derive.

If you have a portfolio of growth stocks, value stocks, dividend stocks, you kind of need to find an initial income relative to your portfolio ratio.

The problem for most of your portfolio is… they are all different from one another. Some folks have $1M worth of 3 bank stocks. Some have $1M of 40 stocks but 10 of them form 50% of it.

And all of you, by right should buy or sell based on different strategies.

Everyone is trying to be a retail portfolio manager.

What is “draw a conservative initial income?”

This means you either sell your shares, from don’t know which shares that you want, that is equivalent to a starting income that you need, so that you can cash flow the portfolio. Or that can be the aggregate dividend income from your portfolio. What happens if the dividend is not enough? Then you sell shares to supplement it.

Conservative means that your portfolio can yield 6% based on current market value, but you are starting the income with an equivalent of 3% only.

But why a lower amount?

Because you are respective those challenging periods, that happens in the future, that look like certain challenging periods in the past, such as those persistently high inflation periods or those period with 50% drawdowns.

While 6% is your current yield, my last post shows that dividend growth trajectory can be negative.

The SWR is a robust framework that works out certain conservative ratios, be it a 100% diversified equity portfolio, 80%, 60%, 40%. Also note that its on portfolios with a specific systematic strategy (which means if you don’t know what you are doing, your results would much vary from this).

Since the gentlemen wishes to retire at 65. Let me give the conservative income to portfolio value ratio, or the SWR for different allocation based on US equity data for an income tenure of 35 years, with 0.3% p.a. all in cost:

100% equity: 2.8% [$1M portfolio start with an initial income of $28,000 annually then adjust each subsequent year by each subsequent year’s inflation.
80% equity: 3.4%
60% equity: 3.5%
40% equity: 3.3%

This is generated by Gilgamesh, my SWR calculator on my blog.

These would be good numbers to start. If you draw out this amount, you can consider this $1M to provide this $28k to $35k of inflation adjusted income for 35 years. Then you consider how it works with your other income stream.

You may ask: Why is the ratio lower for equity compare to less equity? Because returns is not everything. The most challenging periods might be those where the portfolio goes down a lot AND you need to withdraw from the portfolio still.

Think conservative as the highest income that you can spend, in the most challenging 35 year thread in history. And it is likely a period you have not lived in (the recent periods have been easy compared to some in the past despite what you think).

If you have a more dividend oriented portfolio and have higher income, you also know that the dividend income may not be so consistent. Okay… maybe some of you have the impression it is consistent, and if so, please stop adding capital to your portfolio… don’t touch it (don’t buy or sell), then you can see if the income for the next few years are… as consistent as it is.

You may also be considering if inflation runs 8%, can the actual aggregate dividend income go up by 8% for that exact year. Or maybe the year next so that you can

Have money to spend (because 100% of all your income needs is essential)
Don’t lose purchasing power.

You would realize… you aren’t 100% sure.

So what would more sensible dividend investors typically do?

They would buffer.

If they need $3000 a month in essential spending needs, they will only retire if their income stream is 10% more. Some would feel… 10% is not conservative. So maybe I need 20% more.

Some may feel all of these are not conservative!

I need 100% more! $6000 a month!

Well isn’t it the same as having a $1M portfolio yielding an aggregate 6% and starting the spending at 3%?

I think this is a concept that folks struggle to understand about the SWR but they are actually doing it, just in a not very empirical way.

If you need 100% more buffer, you just need twice more capital.

I hope this helps to explain the safe amount to draw out from the portfolio part.

So that I moved to the part that… I am less sure about.

Why do I say that no two portfolios are the same?

Because I really don’t know what this gentleman holds.

In what allocation.

What is his thinking behind his purchase. What is his thinking behind his sales.

Does he sell?

Have no idea.

Now I always have a hunch, purely based on how many prospect or client portfolio that went past my eyes (I don’t serve clients directly but in my course of work, I for sure would see some assets and liabilities data):

US stocks are going to be your Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet
They will have some local REITs like those of the Capitaland, Keppel or Mapletree
They have 3 banks, with one of them being an extremely large holdings.
Some sporadic Singapore stocks.
Some happen to have company shares (and some a significant amount in it)

This gentleman may feel insulted if he has a great investment strategy and I pigeonhole him to the rest and if so, I apologize in advance.

The allocations is a reflection of our investment history, about our bias but also the extent of our knowledge.

The thing is: those conservative ratios, ala the SWR might not really apply because of how you run your investment strategy and how concentrated is your portfolio.

Those equity and fixed income allocations are determine systematically.

If I have a coherent strategy around value investing around large cap, with a layer of quality, I can have a Dimensional large cap value research index going back to 1926.

I can add it to Gilgamesh and I can see how this strategy does in many 35-year periods to figure out what’s conservative and what is not.

If you don’t have a coherent strategy for the next 35 years, then…. how do we assess?

How would you assess?

That is always the difficult part.

In many of these cases, if you come in to Providend for planning, we will gently explain to you why you should sell some or all of these off to put in a more systematic, diversified, low-cost portfolio.

It is because there are certain attributes of these portfolios that will add up better to form a more coherent income strategy.

That is not to say we will force you to. It is up to you.

You can sometimes have a final say if you are for sure your dividend income stream, based on 7% yield to market value, can consistently give inflation adjusted income that is consistent.

We will use that for our planning.

Your portfolio, managed by yourself would have to deliver.

And its the same if you are managing your portfolio. If you are very tied to a strategy that you have strong affinity to, you answer to yourself.

You be truthful to yourself if it is working or there were blind spots that you only see now.

Have you ever tamper with your portfolio of securities in the past?

I am not sure how this gentlemen came to this set of securities.

And how he manages it in the past and how he wishes to manage this in the future.

Many of us downplay how actively we have managed in the past.

We underestimate how active we will manage it in the future (despite not preferring that).

If your portfolio, in its current form, is the result of much selling and buying, then would you expect in the future to be any different?

If you wish for a more passive portfolio, then how would you guarantee (to yourself not us) that this set of securities are the “finalized” list of securities and won’t change much in the future?

I think that is something for those who wear the hat of a retail portfolio manager to think about. When you are 85 year old, you are still keeping up with the markets.

I personally would love to be able to maintain the interest to do that, but I don’t wish for the fate of my portfolio to be tied sooooooooo much to having so much sanity in the markets. But that’s me, this gentleman like you may be different.

I kind of think the most passive portfolios are those that follow an empirical strategy and systematically executed without me doing it. This means the holdings in the strategy itself keep changing. Aside from that, all portfolios are different. Those that buy and hold and are more diversified might be okay. Those who are more concentrated I think your portfolio may be doomed (read buy and hold and never change) because the base rate of most companies is that they have shorter and shorter lifespans.

Considering Your Other Areas to Take Care Of

I think its a very short comment and I would wish for more people to really start off with what is the lifestyle they wish to “buy” in retirement.

Everything starts from there.

It’s not always about how much assets we have or how we invest. It is about how great or frugal is our demands.

Everyone of our lifestyles are different

Some have not paid off their mortgage.
Some still need to provide for children.
Some definitely need a car.
Some wish to work in retirement.

If you tell me I have $1M, then you see how much I spent per month, I can tell you i anyhow split equity or fixed income it would most likely be okay.

But if my needs is $8000 a month, then $1M may not be enough if we consider some of the most challenging 35-year sequences.

Besides your investments, there will also be how much your wife and you will have in CPF LIFE annuity income. That reduces the burden on the investment portfolio.

You may also not have added any excess CPF OA money.

So lots of gaps but I hope the gentleman finds it useful. If not hope its entertaining enough.

For other readers, if you have similar questions, you can ping me. These days I read less (because of work), but if you want Aunt Agony type of financial content, I can still try to do.

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 Fee-only Wealth Advisory Firm Providend. 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.