I especially like to read Sunday Times where there are various Personal Finance articles towards the back of the stack each weekend. In recent months, they have been putting up a series on hypothetical investment portfolios for three people with very distinct profiles. All three portfolios have consistently performed below their equivalent market benchmarks. The common reason stated was transaction costs which eroded the performance, especially for the smaller portfolios. The portfolios have not been around long. So to be fair, they need to be given more time to show results over a longer term, perhaps three years? I wonder if they will ever pan out? At the same time, the portfolio advisors have decided to start including an Asia-Pacific ETF to diversify the portfolio from a Singapore-centric portfolio to a more diversified one. That seems to be an attempt at coming closer to the market benchmark since the ETF ......