Rakuten Trade head of equity sales Vincent Lau.
PETALING JAYA: The launch of Rakuten Trade Sdn Bhd’s new service, Raku-Invest, is considered timely as it will ride on the ongoing US bull market, says Rakuten Trade head of equity sales Vincent Lau.
Historically and statistically speaking, Lau said the chances of attracting positive returns from the US stock market this year will be high.
“Historically, bull markets tend to last longer and yield higher returns than bear markets.
“The S&P 500 is up by 15% year-to-date. In a typical bull market, the average returns are more than 20% per year.
“Additionally, 2024 is an election year for the United States. Hence, drawing from historical trends since the 1920s, election years have almost always driven positive market returns, with only two exceptions, being the Asian Financial Crisis and the dotcom bubble,” Lau said during the virtual launch of Raku-Invest yesterday.
Raku-Invest is a localised version of “Tsumitate investing” offered by Rakuten Securities, Inc (RSec) in Japan.
The platform supports dollar cost averaging investment strategy that allows local investors to initiate automated recurring trades for US shares, American Depositary Receipts and exchange traded funds, from RM100.
The concept of Tsumitate investing involves regularly investing small amounts of money over time instead of a lump sum, which aims to reduce the impact of market volatility on investments.
The platform will automatically continue to trade at pre-selected scheduled periods, either weekly or monthly, without human intervention.
Looking at the bullish performance of the US market, Lau maintains that it is prudent for investors to stay invested for the long term.
“When the US market performs well, it positively impacts the local market as well. Therefore, maintaining investments, especially through a systematic approach using Raku-Invest is the right choice for all investors,” he said.
