PIBF = Public Institutional Bond Fund Maybe I get the acronyms wrong .

I also never buy any balanced funds, they are way too expensive, it is cheaper to buy equity and bond funds separately.

Also, I never touch funds less than 5 years old, as I prefer to track performance long term, call me old fashion.


This post has been edited by gark: Oct 31 2010, 05:32 PM

Well here are my opinion only, I am others have their own opinion.

PITTIKAL - Outperform (above benchmark)
PCIF - Underperform (below benchmark)
PNREF - Underperform (way below benchmark)

Your holdings are in Malaysian shares, china and natural resources. To switch or not to switch depends on you. Suggest you diversify to some bonds if you do not have high risk tolerance. And also diversify some of your china funds to asia pacific ex. japan, as they are performing quite good for now.

Learn up on investing, if you invest blindly, you can commit financial suicide.

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 2 2010, 06:47 PM

I am looking at the big picture, at least 3-5 years, for the past 1 year most of PM funds are not doing so well.

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 3 2010, 09:28 AM

I though now it is a mid-cap since they have increased the investment criteria in the last AGM? I voted no in my proxy, but guess it does not matter.

Nobody does anymore research nowadays. Hmmph...

All the funds you mentioned are all in the same category and all of them roughly hold the same stocks in every fund. Why would you buy a bunch of similar funds, hence do not have diversification? You should diversify some of your funds out of Malaysia and hold some bond funds for diversification. Of the funds above only PIttikal and Public Savings are the laggards, compared to the rest.

By the way all of the funds above perform lower/around the benchmark for last 1 year. , but for 5 years they were quite good.

Anyway I am sure, others have their own opinions.

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 6 2010, 10:40 AM

The reason for diversification is not to earn more returns, it is not putting ll your eggs in 1 basket. Bond funds do perform less than equity funds, but they are more safer and have less votality. Oversea funds, do indeed some of them perform better than Malaysian funds, but they too have even higher votality. Bond perform better during bad economic times, and equity perform best during good economic times. Remember there are no equity funds which will perform 'steady' even the best of Malaysian funds have a loss of 30% during 2008.

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Added on November 6, 2010, 2:53 pmI have no idea what are you talking about? Investment cannot be rushed, it is a slow process, which needs a lot of financial knowledge. if you rush into any investment which you are not thinking, then you will suffer the consequences. There are no investment that is 'must have' sooner or later there will be more opportunities down the road.

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 6 2010, 02:53 PM

Most of the overseas fund by Malaysian UT companies does not perform well, maybe they are still not so experienced yet. Need to look for international funds, if you want to invest in a good oversea fund.

Not really performing to good long term compared to benchmark. So gave it a miss. Generally PM funds have not proven themselves for oversea fund performance (maybe lack of experience?).

China Select - performing way below benchmark
China Ittikal - performing slightly below benchmark

Switching not free unless you are gold member. Each switch is RM25. If you switch out RM 5000 for example, you will be paying 0.5% charges each way. I am a more long term holder, so I don't do timing/switch often and not interested in short term profits . But China is more of a longer term play as it can be very volatile.

I am sure many 'guru' here can teach you about timing the market.

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 10 2010, 11:33 AM

Public funds can be bought through the Public bank, each bank branch will have their "UT consultant" (usually customer service), you can refer all buy and sell through them.

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Added on November 16, 2010, 9:06 amLooks more like recycling of existing funds is being offered, just very slightly "different". Not very interested. Getting a bit tired of PM recycling of funds, makes everything bloated. No new idea meh?

This post has been edited by gark: Nov 16 2010, 09:06 AM

All my UT investment is automatically reinvested. During the 2008 crisis, I switch from bond to equity fund and then buy some more with cash. During market boom times, I will switch gradually from equity to bond instead.

Why run away when there is a cheap sale?

This post has been edited by gark: Dec 1 2010, 01:02 PM

It doesn't matter if the NAV is high or low, the investment stays the same. If you invest RM1000 (excluding sales charge), for example.

if NAV = RM 1 = 1,000 Units x Rm 1 = RM 1,000
if NAV = RM 25 = 40 Units x Rm 25 = RM 1,000

The total amount is the same regardless, and the future earnings will be the same, so what is the difference? I have invested in funds which each unit is about 100+USD, it has performed better than my PM fund which is RM 0.25 per unit.

Only those who does not understand how UT works worry about unit price and amount of dividend given, these are the tricks of the trade to fool the average investors. These are the same thinking as some of my friends who says RM 0.10 share is "cheap" and those RM 10+ shares is "expensive" no matter what company is behind it

This post has been edited by gark: Dec 3 2010, 09:09 AM

If you do the same calculation with a NAV of RM 25, it will be the same figure, as long as the percentage is the same. The NAV makes no difference. The chance to climb higher is NOT affected by the dividend payment, it is based on the market. Basically dividen in UT is NOT an earning, it is merely a distribution. You are merely taking money from your left pocket and put in your right pocket, does that makes you feel richer?

Lets say your calculation above, You have invested RM 1000. If RM 0.02 dividend was paid (and reinvested & assume no tax) as you mentioned above, your total earning is now 4286 * 0.28 = RM 1,200 (20% earnings), and if dividend is not given then 4000 units*0.3 = RM 1,200 (20% earnings), can you tell me what is the difference? Is it because you have more units with cheaper value, you can feel better?

Again if the UT earnings rise by 10%, the UT price (after dividend) earning will be 0.28*110%= 0.308*4286 = RM 1320, if the UT did not distribute dividend then the UT price will be 0.3*110% = 0.33*4000 = RM 1320. Again no difference.

Don't be fooled by the agent's sweet talk. Also if you noticed, dividend is taxable, hence you LOSE money. If no dividend is given you are not taxed.

This post has been edited by gark: Dec 3 2010, 11:19 AM

YES, declaring dividend in UT is pointless and makes us LOSE money. . 80% of my UT holdings do not declare dividend. If I need money just sell off some units. Investing in UT makes money, in the form of rising NAV (if exclude dividend). One of my non-dividend UT NAV increased from SGD1.68 to now SGD2.85 (as of today) per unit in 2+ years? So do you think I make money even if I do not receive a single cent of dividend?

That is why I make it a point to reinvest all my dividend in the funds that pay them, so that they can continue to compound. And damn those taxes.

This post has been edited by gark: Dec 4 2010, 11:46 AM

UT with no dividend means no tax. If you sell the units in the UT, the money you gained is considered capital gain and not taxable.

Yeah this will not happen in Malaysia, where everyone is thought to think dividend is 'earnings' and demands them, no dividend means no 'untung'. Also they are programmed to think the cheaper per unit, the UT have a better chance to 'grow'. Maybe some of the UT consultants are to be blamed for this misinformation.

Please note that most guaranteed fund is a very misleading investment. It is nothing more than 90-95% long term fixed deposit (NID) and some 5%-10% in highly speculative stocks, yet you pay high fees for very meager returns. Stay far far away.

This post has been edited by gark: Dec 29 2010, 12:35 PM

Nope I mean Guaranteed Funds, they are very misleading investments.

Indonesia has dropped about 10% in 1 week, also their currency have devalued by about 4.5% also in 1 week. This is due to their recent inflation figures reached 7% . The government now taking emergency action and maybe will need to raise interest rate by 1% by next month to 7.5%. Since yours is a balanced fund, raise interest rate, you also will lose even more money in your bond portion. Public mutual always have the knack of launching funds right at the peak similar to China funds.

After raising interest rate, hopefully the market will be more stable, but the bond funds, will lose out.

This post has been edited by gark: Jan 12 2011, 12:07 PM

I think what you agent is trying to tell you if you switch from equity to bond, and if the market go up, you will miss the opportunity and pay HIGHER prices for your equity.

For example, lest say equity fund RM1, bond Fund RM 1, and no counting of switching charge to make things simple. If you switch 10,000 units of Equity Fund, you get 10,000 units Bond Fund. Also lets assume the equity market goes up instead of down, in 6 months Equity fund is RM 1.1, Bond Fund is RM 1.05. You switch from bond to equity, you will get 10,000 x 1.05/1.10 = 9,545.45 units so you actually lose on the potential earnings.

But of course if the market down go down instead of up, then you avoid more losses.

Instead of timing the market (which most people gets it wrong), maybe you would like to use asset allocation to automatically re balance your portfolio say every 6 months. This is a much simpler method, and avoid timing altogether.

P/S your agent will earn more trailer fees if you hold equity fund. Bond funds have very low fees for the agent.

This post has been edited by gark: Jan 22 2011, 02:25 PM