Either consult your UTC or read this article. Helped me a lot when i started investing...

This post has been edited by gark: Jan 23 2010, 04:36 PM

Ask something and we will reply lah...

There are a lot of online sites selling UT without agent and of course it is much cheaper, since they cut out the agent fees.

---

Added on March 19, 2010, 12:21 pmNot a bad fund, I also own some of it. It has good morningstar and lipper rating. But the fund is high risk. So depends on your investment strategy.

---

Added on March 19, 2010, 12:24 pm1.5 months is too short of an investment period for you to notice anything. To see actual performance, you will need about 2-3 years.

---

Added on March 19, 2010, 12:29 pmI have an account with PM online. Can monitor your funds, buy, sell and switch. But too bad, the fees still stays the same with no reduction for DIY.... very bad.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 19 2010, 12:29 PM

If you are looking for UT's which are suitable for you, suggest that you need to know about your risk tolerance first. There are many site which does a free risk profiling for you with questionnaires. Although this is somewhat inaccurate, at least you know where you stand.

After you are sure of your risk profile, then you can plan your holdings, ie. percentage of each fund/sector that you want to hold. Diversification is recommended so you do not lose everything if a fund tanks, especially a high risk funds. For me I am concentrated in Malaysia, Asia Pac ex Japan, a little europe and US with a sum in pure China & commodities. Bond and cash funds provide stability in my holdings.

To gauge which funds have relatively good performance, you may refer to charts available online at lipper or morningstar. For me i do not chase the best performer, rather those with consistent earnings and lose the LEAST during a recession. Preservation of capital is important for me. Read the fund fact sheet and annual reports. Be wary of high initial and annual fees.

For me, unfortunately i do not use DCA, i buy on weakness and sell on strength. DCA will get you on average performance, which if it is suitable for you, then go for it. Switching in UT is an important strategy, however you need to use it sparingly since there are massive charges involved (ie. pay a lot of initial charge). You may switch to rebalanced your portfolio, ie. sell those with high profit and move them to the least profit or to lower/increase your exposure to risks. I am now actively re balancing most of my equity portfolio to bonds on market out performance.

Don't just monitor NAV, you must also include the dividends you receive in calculating profits. You can check the nav at each respective UT site.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 19 2010, 10:09 PM

For public Ittikal, the holdings for February 2010 is 91% equities and rest in cash. The equity holdings are 62% Malaysia, 12% China, 12% Korea and Taiwan, and the rest in Japan, Australia and USA. This IMHO is not a moderate risk fund, in fact the holdings are quite risky for the fund.

There is no advantage to top up after the dividend declaration as the NAV will drop accordingly. The devidends are taken out of your own pocket to be given back to you (and minus tax!). I actually prefer funds that DON'T give out any dividend. So many people misunderstood that lots of dividends means that the fund is good. (It's all a lie by the way). For example Public Ittikal gave up 6 sen of dividend ALTHOUGH they lost -16% in 2009.

If you switch or withdraw your investment if the NAV is down trending, then you re making a paper loss into a REAL loss. Wether the fund will perform or not depends when you buy it. If you invest a big sum at the market top, then it is downhill from there. Rather than put a large sum in one period, disperse your investment and gauge the market at the meantime.

Bond funds are low risk funds, while equity is quite risky. During good times when risk rewards, switch your bond funds to equity to gain from the good market performance. If the market is very bad, or losing then switch equity to bond, to preserve your assets and also minimize any losses from downtrend. Alternatively you may switch some units from equity to bond funds to lock in your gains. Low load funds are funds you pay 0%-2% of initial fees and loaded funds typically charge 5.5% to 6.5%.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 19 2010, 11:15 PM

Distribution and dividend is almost the same thing except unit split.

Lets say you have 1,000 units of UT with a NAV of RM 1, that makes a total of 1,000 units x Rm 1.00 = RM 1,000.
Lets say a fund decide to give up 5 cent dividend, So your 1,000 units x RM 0.05 = RM 50 as dividend. You are happy to receive dividend.
The the unit trust HAVE TO MANDATORY revalue the unit price of RM 1.00 - Rm 0.05 (dividend) = RM 0.95 per unit
The unit trust now you hold is valued at RM 0.95 x 1,000 units = RM 950.

So do you really earn any money? You receive RM 50 dividend, yet your investment is now valued at RM 50 less than before. Yet you need to pay tax on these dividend.

So as you can see above, unit trust that is paying dividend is actually taking from your investment and pay to your pocket. So there is no advantage if a UT gives up dividend.

By holding Public Dividend select will not makes much difference. The shares held by the trust pay the dividen to the trust and not to you. The dividend that the trust pays to you is from the earnings whether if it is from the dividend they receive, interest or gains from selling the shares. (minus management fess of course.. ). Go ask your UT consultant, and watch him get tongue tied. You can see all of these if you look closely at the financial reports.

This is of course different from fixed priced fund such as ASB, but that's a different calculation. ASB pays out from retained earnings as the unit price don't change. And dividend from ASB is tax free.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 19 2010, 11:58 PM

Public mutual website actually show a very misleading investment gain graph. .The graph is merely pure performance without considering the fees you pay either upfront or in yearly fees or dividend tax. If you minus all those costs expect your graph to be reduced by 10-20%. I rather track my own investment with all the costs put in, and is always lower than reported by the graph.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 20 2010, 12:07 AM

Maybe it's the calculation method. For me i do not use the posted NAV as a basis for calculation. I use the actual paid amount per unit (including the initial cost of 5.5%) for my calculation. This enables me to include the 5.5% fees a cost of purchase for my units, so my profit and loss margin is more easy to identify. With this method, on the very first day of purchase, my chart already show a loss of 5.5%. So if you start with a -5.5% disadvantage, you tend to lose 10%-20% accumulated over 5-6 years.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 20 2010, 08:33 AM

That's why, wouldn't you prefer that they do not issue dividend at all so we all do not get taxed? If I want that some kind of dividend, might as well i sell of 5% of my units for my own dividend, since capital gain is tax free? So.. in conclusion dividend in unit trust is a waste of time.

For stocks is different as, the price of the stock does not necessary track the book value, so dividend gains is suitable and the price might continue to go up. Unfortunately unit trust track the book value known as NAV, which is guaranteed to go down after dividend issue.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 24 2010, 02:13 PM

If i choose to reinvest, i get taxed anyway. If they don't have dividend then i don't get taxed. Thats is why now i am moving to UT which do not pay dividends.

All my funds are auto-reinvest and get taxed every year. Public mutual send me the tax voucher every year as well

---

Added on March 24, 2010, 11:05 pmI moved to fsm.sg, most of the funds there does not pay dividend, furthermore dividend is tax free in sg.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 24 2010, 11:05 PM

My income tax bracket is already max, so i do not get any more tax adjustment.....

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 25 2010, 08:35 AM

Yep, Jordy's right, Reinvestment = Dividend - Tax.

1. ETF is very cost effective - plus point
2. ETF offering in Malaysia small choice - minus point
3. ETF volume is thinly traded - minus point
4. ETF mostly tracks the benchmark, won't do better or worse - Neutral point
5. ETF is passive investment not active - plus or minus depend on your standing

Overall ETF in malaysia is minus point. If you want to play ETF you must venture out of Malaysia stock market.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 26 2010, 07:52 PM

3 years eh? You invested at the top of the market in 2007, what can you expect? That is why you need to diversify your holdings over sectors and time period Be patience because if you cash out now you will make a loss, give it a year or two, and hopefully it will be back at where you started.

This fund is concentrated with 76% in china holdings, so far it has slightly lagged the index, but not too bad. Looking at the holdings this is a very high risk fund. Anyway china has not been doing quite well for the last 6 months, due to bank policy tightening but there is potential if you are patience enough.

I also play a pure china fund, but only with 5% of my holdings. So far it's doing ok.

Don't be discouraged, take the potential loss as a tuition fee for your investment knowledge.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 28 2010, 05:16 PM

Heh David83, looks like you are going for the high risk high gain method eh? China although have very good potential is always a very volatile fund. hence i have delegated it to my non-core holdings, I used to hold 10% but have cut down steadily over the last couple of months. Hope the year of the tiger don't bring any 'bitterness' or 'hardships'. On second taught, my funds are quite risky as well with 30% in asia ex japan.

---

Added on March 28, 2010, 9:36 pmRight, my PM funds are all Malaysia funds, for my china funds, I trust the 'Chinese' to manage it. (oops HK Chinese instead... )

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 28 2010, 09:38 PM

Average down is a dangerous game, in 2008, took me nerves of steel to double down each time the price falls by 10%. Made some mistakes catching some falling daggers, but in the end it's still worth it cause 40% of the bets worked, which let me recover the losses by July 2009, whew.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 28 2010, 11:05 PM

I am now gradually switching my equity holdings to bond, to lock in some gains on good market times... not so sure about 2010...

There are some in Malaysia, 3 of them . Otherwise you need to venture offshore, as there are many more opportunities. The nearest will be SGX, you can try poems.com.sg as they cater to malaysian investors. If you want more choices you need to go to NYSE.

If you want to wait, you can almost wait forever, as the few ETF's in Malaysia is hardly traded at all.

This post has been edited by gark: Apr 6 2010, 06:00 PM

No, not an real overdraft facility, but more like a flexible loan with your U.T. funds as collateral. During the loan period, the funds are no longer yours, you cannot sell or switch. In case you fail to pay your monthly repayments, your U.T. will be sold against your will to pay your debts.

Anyway here is the plan.. called Uniflex Plan.

This post has been edited by gark: Apr 12 2010, 07:50 PM