Bought some Betashares Asia Technology Tigers ETF (ASIA)

I noticed that I had set up an IG trading account with $500 to get some bonus Qantas Frequent Flyer points last year, and it still had a cash balance of $436.55 sitting in the account (yes, I managed to lose some money while doing the required number of trades to qualify for the Frequent Flyer points, but the value of the QFF points I got was still significantly greater than the amount of money I lost). I probably should have just closed the account and transferred the balance back out, but I decided instead to purchase some ETF shares with the available balance. I've placed an order for 50 of the Betashares Asia Technology Tigers ETF (ASX code ASIA). At a limit price of $8.57 and $8 in brokerage that order will just about use up all the cash balance on the account. Assuming that the order gets filled when the markets reopen on Monday, I'll just let the investment sit for a decade or so and see what happens. No matter how this investment performs it will be hardly worth the trouble of including any distributions in my annual tax return, and to calculate capital gain/loss when I eventually sell the investment, so I might set up a monthly automatic contribution from my savings account into the IG account, and then add to this holding every six months or so to 'dollar cost average' into a larger position over time.

The top 10 holdings of this fund are:

Name	Weight (%)
TENCENT HOLDINGS LTD	9.1
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTU	9.1
ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING LTD	8.9
MEITUAN DIANPING	8.8
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO LTD	8.4
JD.COM INC	6.0
PINDUODUO INC	4.5
NETEASE INC	4.5
SK HYNIX INC	3.5
INFOSYS LTD	3.4

By country the ETF allocation is about 55% China, 20% Taiwan, 20% South Korea and 5% India.

And by sector it is about 30% internet and direct marketing, 20% interactive media and services, 20% semiconductors, and the balance other 'tech' sectors. The relevant index has a five year average return of 14.25% pa and the ETFs management costs are around 0.67% pa.

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Diet (bad) and Exercise (none) week whatever

After progressing well with my weight loss and exercise program until the gyms closed down and I started working from home (and eating too much junk food), I've now put back on about ten kilos since Feb. Time to stop snacking and start ramping up my daily step count again! While I was taking the bus and train to work (and walking around the office) I used to regularly do about 10,000 steps/day, which helped burn off the calories. But since being stuck at home all day I've averaged only 1,500 - 2,500 steps/day.

I noticed today in my Qantas Wellbeing phone app that until the end of June I can earn a 'bonus' 10 Qantas Frequent Flyer points every day that I walk at least 7,500 steps. Time to put the gym shoes on and start going for evening walks again...

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Fun investing app - Spaceship

I opened an account with 'Spaceship' in August 2018 and invest $100/mo in their 'Universe' fund. So far the performance has been quite 'stellar', with gains of 35.54% in the past year. I've no idea how this fund will perform in future, so don't take this as a recommendation to invest! But I'll keep adding $100/mo automatically and see how this account performs over the next 10 or 20 years (assuming it stays around that long).

The 'universe' fund invests in a range of companies, including global tech companies such as Adobe, Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon and Apple (funny how a lot of 'tech' companies all start with "A"). With No brokerage fees, no buy-sell spreads, no entry or exit fees, and no admin fee for balances below $5,000 (and only 0.10% in total fees for balances over $5,000) it seems a pretty easy, cheap and fun way to get into 'investing'. I also like the colour scheme, which happens to be my favourite colour ;)

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DS1 has his first job already lined up for when he finishes uni

DS1 is currently in his third and final year at UNSW studying computer science, and recently finished doing 'final round' interviews with two local IT companies. It turned out he was offered a position by both companies! He initially accepted the offer made by the first company (a stock trading investment company), as he didn't get an answer/offer from the second company (that he was more interested in) until after the acceptance deadline. A week later the second company also sent him an offer, so he then had to let the first company know that he'd changed his mind. His starting salary will be about the same as mine (!) and he'll also get about $20K pa worth* of stock 'options' each year for the first four years. The value of the stock options is a bit of an unknown as the company isn't yet publicly listed, but the company has been growing very rapidly (it started up in 2012 and has apparently been profitable since 2017 - although its hard to know for sure with private companies).

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