Been invested in lousy pm - PCIF, price keep decrease and never distribute any dividend for years.. . anyone bought this? Mind to share your opinion on this UT?

@shanelai
I always have poor perception towards Public Mutual Fund Managers especially on their China Funds (PCSF,PCIF...). I had this fund before and sold it off - All.

shanelai, I still have PCSF with me.

When is dividend given? How do I know when it is given? How to choose payout or reinvest?

The information is inside the fund prospectus. Usually the distribution is once a year and reinvested into units if you didn't give specific instructions.

It depends on the fund policy. Most of the funds are incidental. Funds like PFEDF and PAIDF (dividend funds) are committed to pay distribution on annual basis.

Where can I know about more regarding the dividend of fund's I've invested?

Read the fund reports? Or look at the monthly factsheet, it will have dividends and yields for the past 5-6 years.

PCSF used to be a good fund right? Initially launch til Beijing Olympic the fund is making a lot of profit..
But PCIF is "cui" starting from the launch until now... lol

Used to be before the financial tsunami. I rode on the sinking boat.

Yes, dunno why PCSF still cant 'go up'!:)

the purpose of unit trust is to beat inflation ... so must keep for long ...

not play contra like share

Need to find a good timing to sell off then.... hm....

In my case, I've learned not to rely on Public Mutual's funds that invest outside Malaysia. I find that their domestic funds earn very steady returns but there is a lot of variation between their foreign funds. It makes sense too. I trust Public Mutual to be knowledgeable about the Malaysian market but do I trust Public Mutual to have enough skilled analysts to be knowledgeable as well on US, China etc. stocks? I think not.

I think if you want to invest in a foreign country it is better to try to find the best unit trust fund for that country that is based there directly. Of course, this is only feasible if your investment amounts are large enough.

Not necessary, many foreign investment funds can be invested with a minimum of either 1,000 USD or 1,000 SGD.

It doesn't look like PM has any "feeder" funds, ie you buy a PM fund which buys into other foreign managed funds.

That way, it would suite those investors who want a foreign managed fund, and yet deal through a local company.

I haven't read through the details of every fund, so I could have missed something.

Feeder funds are not worth it, as the investor pay double layer fees. Furthermore, using a feeder fund, the fund house actually earns less than they run the fund themselves. If you want foreign funds might as well buy from them directly and save on your cost?

This post has been edited by gark: Apr 30 2010, 07:41 PM

There would be some additional hidden fees, but I don't expect it would be significant or anywhere up to "double". In fact, as far as initial charges are concerned (for the ones I know), it's exactly the same as what the fund house would charge. The fund house may earn less, but then they don't have to do anything more than channeling the funds to another party who would be making all the investment decisions.

If you were to decide on a foreign fund, the main criteria should be how much the fund can potentially outperform the local funds (at least say 5% more) rather than the 0.5% you can save on fees. Fees are insignificant when you put these things into context.

Lastly, some investors may prefer dealing with local companies rather than some foreign websites, and to them that is worth a lot more than any percentage numbers we can put on fees.

Well if you read correctly, I mentioned double layer fees and not 'double' the fees.

Typical charge of a feeder fund is 1.5% due to the external fund and 0.3% due to the local fund manager. On average the total management fees is >2%. Initial cost is usually between 5% to 6% charged by the local fund manager but if you invest direct overseas you only pay 1%-2%. Also you must consider the cash lag, in which typical feeder funds holds between 2% to 5% and some until 10%. Every percentage of cash holdings is the difference in the performance. I have analyzed most of the feeder funds in Malaysia vs. their actual foreign funds and there are noticeable differences in the return, therefore decided to invest directly with them. Also most of the foreign funds the feeder funds invest in are not the best of it's class and quite poor performing except one or two.

Also we must consider the flexibility and fund choices available for external funds. For example if we looking for emerging bonds, there are only 2-3 feeder funds to choose from and usually the best of the funds are not available, but with foreign investment i can have a choice of >10 funds to choose from including those highly rated ones.

If you read correctly, I put "double" in quotes. That means don't interpret it too literally.

The point about fees is really only one of many factors. The point should be how much you expect to get in hand, ie actual returns after all the fees and charges, and after all the non-tangible factors like dealing with local companies etc, the invester makes his/her decision.

True, there is a limited choice of feeder funds. But one is obviously not limited to feeder funds, only.