Currency trading is much more difficult/complicated than share trading and futures trading and movement is very small just like Dreamer said ,so you need to bet big in order to make a decent amount of money and resulted more risky.
Leverage or gearing is the most dangerous strategy to do if you don't know what you are doing.

Any investment surely got both gain and loss probability, don't ever believe there is such thing so called 'sure win' strategy or investment. Even your FD (ineterest) is not 100% 'sure win' since if bank went broke just like in Thailand 98's financial crisis, the under-troubled banks' customers FD can't be drawn out for 3-5 years periods, it only allowed you to draw up to certain limit so that the bank can stay liquidify.

Also, the new insurance scheme introduced by BNM stated that all deposits in Malaysia are guaranteed up to RM60k per person/account if the bank go broke. So there is still 0.000001% your FD is 'loss'.

The main objective of insurance is to provide financial protection to your dependants or family if any unforseen circumstances happen to you, not mean to have capital appreciation (the main objective of investment).
Some may argue it is also a type of investment but personally not view it as investment at all. There is not flexibility in the insurance since once you sign up, you obligate to pay the premium for the full period as stated in the policy, if surrender halfway then you lose large chunk of the premium paid (for those kind of saving type insurance)

Talk is easy and costless, in real trade, mistake might mean losing chunks of saving even for some go broke. Think twice and calculate how much you can risk before venture into this kind of risky speculation/investment particularly forex and futures. I am not saying forex and futures is not good, but bare in mind this kind of investment has bigger risk so return also looks hefty.

When you are actual trading, emotion, fear, greediness and unpredictable market sometimes lead to you make mistake.

It is quite norm for those IPO fund to give some bonus unit or some called discount ranging from 1 -3% so you save a bit the 5-6% entering charge for unit trust.

For the Asiatic trap as mentioned, I think the SC and KLSE authority should look serious into the manner. It is not the first time happening, it also happened for the GBH financial result as well which misleading the public its profit (actual only a few ten million profit but published it with more than 100mil) causing false alarm and its share temporarily shoot up and causing people losing money by buying its share based on the profit information. Either mistype or whatever, if the company publish wrong/false information to the public, it should be punished if not, the authority is losing its creditibility already.

There are several securities firms that provide online trading, just open an account with them, normally they won't charge you in the accessing of the website for quotation of price, just some initial minimal sign up fee for documentation.

Look at the bright sight, at least we knew there are plenty of scam or so called 'brilliant' investment plan and waiting to 'fish' people.
If it is so good then EPF board should look into it since they are struggling to outpeform the around 6% return rate.

Like dreamer said, something it is too good to be true already, then beware, there is no free lunch in the world just waiting for you. If it is true it is so good then others already grab it and still let you have a share on it?

The main objective of an insurance particularly life insurance type is to protect your dependants on you in unforseen circumstances so that your dependants won't lose the financial support if anything happened to you.
It is not a good tool of investment bare in mind. There are plenty of other investment tools out there which offer much better return than it.

FKLI - Future of Kuala Lumpur composite index
FCPO - Future of Crude Palm Oil

Eg. FKLI Sep, if you buy it let say today 956 then at the end of last trading day (sept) the index settle at 970 then you gain 14 points - each point worth RM50 so 14x50 = RM700. On the other hand if you sell it at 956 then you lose the Rm700 before commission charges. But if index plunge to 900 then the person sell first one will gain 56 points.

You can also trade Dec contract or 2007 March one.

The beauty of futures is you can trade both way either up or down unlike share only upwards you can gain. Basically it is somehow more like speculation rather than investment and it is a zero sum game, a person gain money surely got one opposite person lose. But sometimes it can be a good tool of hedging/protecting you shareholding -> much more complicated already so not elaborated it here, long story

At least the dumb people has plenty of money to put in to bank otherwise he/she doesn't need to open an bank account.

I know what he/she means with that statement some sort of to maximise the return opportunity but in investment sometimes you need to be defensive depends on the market and economy situation, not always trying too aggressive. Offensive strategy during wrong environment will led to quick failure. Now you see lot of hedge fund suffering billions of loss even some has to be winding up by betting oil and natural gas will go much higher instead oil and natural gas plunge to year low. They use bank more than others in some range they has gearing/leverage of 800% e.g. you have 1 dollar but use bank facilities and futures contract so that your bet become like 8 dollar. Sound great if winning but if lossing how? where to find the extra 7 dollar?

Investment strategy needs to be changed time from time, evaluate your strategy and market situation before commit your Hard-Earned money.

This post has been edited by cherroy: Sep 22 2006, 09:53 AM

FD is also a type of investment, just it is low risk low return. It is not nice/right to call it as 'dumb' investment.
When stock market, housing market and commodities price plunge time when financial melt-down/crisis, it becomes a wise investment already.

Normally all are about the same but sometimes it is a bit different from bank to bank depended on their management.
Eg. hlb gives 4% from 1 years while maybank gives 3.7%

Ya, just like Dreamer said, apart from FD which offer low return rate, there is not much choice for general public to find an investment which offer low risk investment which gives you a positive return rate. Most people realise FD will not able and successful to hedge the inflation rate but if you don't want to take the risk of losing money then the only alternative is FD and some of the saving insurance scheme.

Other investments like mutual fund, stocks, futures, currency even pyramid scheme definitely offer much better return rate (if the market situation move up or according to your projected plan) but it also will led to negative return rate (lose money) if the market moves against your plan.

Theorectically, FD is not a good investment tool but a lot of people will sleep well every night if his/her money put into FD compared to others investment tools. The better scenario is diversification, a portion of money put into FD, some into stocks and other investment tools based on the risk ratio you able to handle.

There is no best way of investment, it depends on the economy situation and financial market. Also, it depends on individual preferences and risk handling capability. For eg. if you have family which depends on your source of income, you won't put your money 100% in stock and futures market but rather a large portion into FD like investment in order to protect and secure your family spending, right?

Talk is easy when it come to real money involved then a lot of consideration need to be taking into the account. If not the book writer don't need to publish the book already, since he/she might be already rich enough based on the theory writen. Having said that, the book(s) is good for references and guidances for investment purposes and it is up to individual how to implement and interpret it according to the individual needs. Again there is no such thing of the best investment tools or strategy.

We come here to share investment knowledge not flaming others.

Malaysia stock market is half dead already, no foreign interest, low volume apart for a few speculation stock. It is going nowhere at the moment even for big blue like MISC, TM, Genting, volume sometimes only a few ten thousand shares changing hand for a session. KLSE's counters might have around 1300 in number but half of those didn't have any transaction at all almost everyday. Those kind of listing serves no purpose except for company owner to liquidify their holding and profit from it.
The only big player in the market are EPF and PNB.
Quality is more important than quantity.

Apart from some high dividen yield stock (7-8%), there is almost no attraction at all mainly due to sluggish growth of domestic economy. If not export industry is doing quite well at the moment, domestic economy might already been in recession.

For speculators
Stock market definitely is the casino, they just buy and sell the 'price' and gain and lose from it. Whether it is A company or B company, who's care, the important is that the syndicate will push the 'price higher' so that I can gain from it. If really want to speculate, better go for the futures market which is more volatile and lesser cost though I won't recommend people to speculate, once awhile is ok but not on long term basic.

For investors
The stock market is another investment tool and invest into a good managed company that will yield got dividen while capital appreciate together with the company growth.

But sadly to say, most of the KLSE retailers are at the speculators side, often you heard some asking got tips or not.
For those playing contra and using margin at long term basic, it is just like suicide.

This post has been edited by cherroy: Sep 29 2006, 05:38 PM

quite agree, the FKLI is some how very quiet recent few months mainly due to sluggish performance from the cash market. Not to mention the SSF which has been dead and buried now.

Individual will find little options to invest abroad, but if really interested can invest into the some global fund which act as feeder fund that invest into oversea fund particularly in US. Almost all global fund outperform local equity fund due to sluggish performance of KLSE currently if you look for 1-2 years performance ranking.

Just to share today news about Swisscash
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?f...0816&sec=nation

Actually the 1400 counters in the KLSE don't mean anything. 30-40% of the counters are not trading at all everyday, while another 30% are only having a few lots trading at daily basic. KLSE might having quantity but not quality even it has 3000 or 10,000 counters also no use with most counters lack liquidity with no trading at all or with little trading only.

If you use Mayban Securities firm to trade then you need to open a CDS with them, if you trade with OSK then a OSK's CDS account is needed. So a person can ended with multiple CDS account which is not cross-link between securities firm.

A CDS account is just an account that keep your share in it instead of issuing a printed copy of share certificate, that's all.

Friendly speaking, current stock market can't be classified as bull market, don't be fooled by the Composite index, ask some old timers and experienced traders will tell you current market condition is not exciting at all, just some selective buying especially those index related heavy weight by EPF board and PNB (gov related investment arms and some few foreign interest only) and some 'goreng' stock. Others still like dead water, little movement.

It depends the fund portfolio, even CI reached 1000, some of the local equity funds still underperform.

Currently, local equity fund is so so only, return is barely above FD rate. The better performance mostly come from global fund which most of them enjoy double digits gain due to well performanced market in overseas particularly US market which reached multi-years high while dow jones hit all time high. -> that's call bull market.

Malaysia is now the least attractive bourse among Asian countries, even JCY (one of the biggest hdd manufacturer based in JB) has postponed the listing in KLSE and consider to be listed in Singapore or HK as The Edge reported. KLSE really lack of quality company to be invested, also liquidity is quite low which make some listing meaningless.

Unless there is major restructuring of GLCs company, and policy revamp, it is difficult to attract really serious foreign interest and fund coming. We don't need hedge fund that 'goreng' Iris like mad which won't do any good to the market.



This post has been edited by cherroy: Nov 1 2006, 04:32 PM