Ya, I agree with you. I also can't understand the futures concept. Anyway, what is FKLI and FCPO?

This is not the issue of dumb or wise. This depends on individual. Usually people think doctor is wise, but we can't say a barber is dumb. This depends on individual's interest. If you interested in investment, then sure you can invest your money and get higher return. If you not interested in investment, it's a wise choice you save your money in bank compared to keep your cash under your pillow.

The interest rate of FD depends on bank. There is no fixed rate for all the banks. You can get the interest rate of all the banks from newspaper. Usually business section of newspaper have these information.

Mutual fund has its own advantage. Profit or loss, depends on how you choose the fund. The charges are clearly stated on the prospectus, read it before you invest on mutual fund. Not neccessary you will loss in mutual fund. If you interested and put effort to learn about stock, sure you invest directly in stock market will give you more return.

Then what do you think we can invest our money in to get higher return? Give some advice and suggestions.

Different fund has different rate of service charges. Most of them are around 5-7%, but some of them are 1%, 1.5% or even 0%. Beside this initial service charges, there's also annual administration fee or annual trustee fee, which is around 1-1.5% p.a. All these charges are transparent to investors. Investors should be clear about all these charges before they invest in mutual fund.

Yes, if you invest in UT, you lose 5-7% immediately and need to loss maintenance fee every year...but if you choose the fund correctly, then the return is still higher than all these fees.
For sure, invest in stock market has better return. However, it's advisable we study about the company before we invest in it. If you're confident in banking, then you can study their annual report for past few years, evaluate their performance and consider their management quality. High dividend yield stock is always more safe than others. Anyway, I'm not sure how much is the minimum unit that we can buy in KLSE. If the minimum is 1000units, then not everybody afford to buy the blue chips, as usually their price is very high.

Sure, if you want high return, there is high risk. Double US1k in a month, I can imagine, you also may loss US2k in a month. To be successful in investment, a lot of effort have to be taken, else it's gambling, just depends on luck.

If this is good investment, Warren Buffet will put his time and effort on this...but in fact, ???

If you have time and interested, you can study a bit about some big firm financial status...choose the best 1 and buy its stock. High dividend yield stocks are high recommended.

Mutual fund is another option, but there will be some fee charged, so you must understand the fee mechanism of mutual fund before you invest.

Yes, discipline is very important is investment. Set a limit for win or loss...don't be greedy, then you can survive in the market and earn money. I think , if you just invest with the money that you have, I believe it's not easy to get bankrupt, just don't borrow money to invest. Save your emergency fund, use all your extra money to invest...

In fact, is the stock market is a casino or not, depends on the investors. If you just pick the stock without doing any research or study, then it's gambling, just depends on your luck. If you play contra, meaning buy stock even you don't have so much money, then you're borrowing money from ah long to gamble. If you put effort to study and do research about the companies before you buy the stock, and take this as long term investment, then you will get the returns.

Are these TA accurate? I know nothing about TA...can somebody provide some info? I'm interested in stock market TA.

Yes, public mutual always have better performance and earn more returns. The management fee is still ok, but the service charge is high...around 5-7%...

Yes, mutual fund is long term investment, you only can see return after 3-5 years. Global based fund may perform better than local based fund, but it still depends on world scenario. If Asian face economy crisis, sure global fund is good, but if europe face economy crisis, then local fund is good...Normally, we expect 8-10% return from mutual fund, after deduct the charge and fee.

Some of the fund apply switching fee, but some don't. If not mistaken, public mutual has no switching fee, pidah please correct me if I'm wrong. However, you only can switch among the funds that have similar service charge, else, you need to pay the extra service charge.

Pidah, about the global fund of Public Mutual, does this fund invest directly into foreign stock market or invest to foreign funds?

You can open CDS account in any stock broking company. The list of stock broking can be found from Bursa website. If I'm not wrong, you can open it at OSK, Maybank, Public Bank, RHB, Hong Leong, etc...

How can we get know the dividend distribution history of every listed companies? Any way?
Yes, there're so many counters have no transaction even during the whole week. I think most of us just concentrate on some active counters.

Any investment or financial planning magazines recommended?

These two magazines are in english? I read chinese magazine, Money Compass...

Yes, money compass is 精明理財.

Yes, unit trust service charge is only applied when you buy it, but not when you sell it. So,

End of 2006 Sell
Sale value = 123391
Service charge = 0
Total amount = 123391
Net profit over 3 years = 23391
Annual returns = 7.797%

So, Public Growth Fund has average return, which is around 7-8% annually. For sure, this does not mean unit trust sure earn profit, as the fund may not give 11-12% return every year... If you want to invest in unit trust, must know about the risk level that you can bear with and which fund you should choose.