Aside from Public Mutual Online (PMO) to keep track of the funds, I'm using excel. PMO only provide the total units and the updated NAV price. In keeping it simple, it do not provide the purchased dates or the cost you paid for the fund. Hence, it does not show how much each fund is gaining or losing.

I've wrote some details on tracking the funds using excel previously. Basically, it was in 2 tabs. The main tab showing the full summary of the funds; with purchase dates (this is important to know whether I clear the 90-days period when switching funds), and all the relevant percentages: amount gain/lost, % of portfolio of each fund, etc.

The 2nd tab is archive of switched out funds.

And recently, thanks to suggestion by a sifu here, I added a 3rd tab to import the NAV prices. 1st time trying the import function, and it was a breeze; it was quite intuitive using the function but have to make several tries to get it right.

So now, with formulas in the main tab linking to the appropriate cells in the 3rd tab, the nav prices are updated instantly whenever the 3rd tab 'refreshes' the prices.

Cheers. Happy Hunting.

PS. Switched a small portion into Indo Select this week... after it dropped 4 continuous days. Then it dropped further on the 5th day, but luckily not so much.

It's not easy to foresee what is in the future, and I don't think one can extrapolate what happen in the past to estimate what will happen in future. The world and economics has changed. In the last century, it was the industrial age and industries that was driving the world economics... now it seems to be the information age, and all the innovation is geared towards social networking like twitter & facebook... and these innovations do not enhance productions. It do provide better networking; and information now flows at lightning speed. Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' will be working ever faster to achieve market equilibrium.

What is more important is how 'compounding' works. As shown in previous post, just 2 minor adjustments can reduce your estimated figure from 500k to below 400k.

What we can do is save as much as possible at the present, and pray for the future. 1. There is no such thing as "over save" or saving more than needed. 2. Once the savings reach a 'critical mass' and as in nuclear fission, it will keep compounding on its own to give passive income.

As an example of 'critical mass'. If we 'play-play' with that excel table in above post, and put in RM1,000 as initial investment, and then RM500 every month for the next 59 months and then nothing for the next 25 years, the savings will compounded to more than 400k. And if we leave it aside for another 3 years, it will compound to more than 500k.

They are in the same category of local stocks, and their past performances are still in the ball park in relative to each other. As in the local football league, one team will emerge champion this year and another team will be champion the next year.

For diversity (when 'critical mass' is already achieved), maybe should look into external teams and players. Hong Leong's Vietnam fund returns 50% pa.

Yes, 8% looks reasonable for the long term, and it is the usual % set and used by many financial gurus for the long term. I set a lower 4% to 6% for my own portfolio... too much messing around!

You already know... I'm still a rookie and only holding PM funds.
The only site I knows... http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application.../fundprice.aspx

Here's the performance of the 5 funds with 3 start dates. The end date is 30/9/2013.
1/1/2011 1/1/2012 1/1/2013
PIEF 26.41% 23.60% 7.53%
PIDF 31.91% 22.91% 6.62%
PFSF 29.30% 23.94% 6.51%
PISSF 23.91% 17.89% 8.48%
PDSF 24.23% 22.64% 7.43%

PIEF was not doing too badly...

If the going was good and the fund was meeting our expectation, trying to chase the extra 1-2% with another fund with similar returns might not worth the trouble of stopping DDI and another placement of initial investment and new DDI.

And once we started down this path, we could be repeating the whole process next year, and the following years...

We pretty much look at the same criteria too.

"You will need to diversify a bit to achieve your goal. PIEF is not the best return fund. Look for fund with Lipper Leaders rating of 5-5-5 or 5-4-5 such as PFSF, PDSF, PISSF, PIDF etc."

Please tell us more, what's the rating of PIEF. Maybe you could be kind enough to provide also the ratings of the 4 funds that you suggested. I would no doubt list them here, but I don't have the quarterly reports.

Here’s another good article by Paul Merriman for the weekend...”Why market timing doesn’t work.”

Timing systems/strategies are theories, and it’s hard to strictly follow them when we, investors, are practical beings with emotions when it comes to our hard earned cash and money.

One of the many reasons why we will fail to follow timing systems:

To read more, here’s the link http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-marke...23?pagenumber=1

P.S. Should also read the comments in the article...

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Generally, the financial cycle will swing up and down; and the cycle was perceived a 10-12 years cycle, and perceived to be down to 8 years cycle (if I recalled correctly). And possibly getting shorter and shorter...

2013 is 5 years away from 2008. Heard an "analyst" that there would be a 40% pullback within a year.


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Earlier this year and end of 2012, the KLCI index was in the mid-high 1600s range, and was at its all time high level then.

I started conservatively on an equity fund using the switch-bond-to-equity method using the value averaging method whenever there is a dip in the index, and also on the desire to hold a certain portion of the portfolio in equities; and the buy strategy was also partly based on a set target to convert low-load units to loaded units within a certain time frame.

The 3rd factor forced me to ‘buy’ regardless of the high trend in the index.

So far, all is going well. The YTD (year-to-date profit) is up and is exceeding the service charges I have paid.

Had converted some units to a money-market fund, in June, after they gained more than 10%; and switched another batch to money-market this week when the KLCI is breaking new grounds again.

Now, the portfolio is at 50/50 on bond & money-market and equity. Would continue to lower the equity portion, to preserve the YTD gains, next week; down to 40%, or possibly a low 30%.

This is a sort of value averaging and a mixture of market timing and buy-and-hold strategy.

P.S. Had converted 75% of the low-load units. Yippee!!!

PPS. Switching to a money-market fund is free if after 90 days of holding the equity fund; as explained in a previous post.

As this is a Public Mutual thread, I would choose to ignore yklooi's long and general reply on "dividend distribution".

All funds in Public Mutual are fluctuating prices, unlike a fixed priced fund like ASB. Only a fixed priced fund would have any profit or dividends withheld till the end of the financial year and then distributed pro-rata.

In the fluctuating priced fund, the NAV price is calculated DAILY at the closed of EACH business day.

The financial year-end day is just another business day. So the NAV price before or after distribution is nothing special that you can profit from it.

In short, you can’t time exits and entries based on financial year-ends and hoped to gain from income
distribution. (Actually, the distribution is extra units, not ‘dividends’ in ringgit value.)

Value of fund = Units x NAV price (before distribution) = More units x Lower NAV price (after distribution).

If you selected to have the distributed units reinvested into the fund, the value of your fund still remained the same after distribution.

Your thinking that there is ‘dividend’ and that there is a drop in NAV price after distribution which is equivalent to “cheap” price to buy is flawed.

Sorry, you can’t time the market this way; if it was this easy...

P.S. You are the not the 1st to make this "strategic discovery", it had been asked and answered a couple of times in this thread before.

KLCI up 0.82%... PISEF up 0.89%.

Bought 3 local funds in June and PISEF is the sole fund which I'm still holding.

Yeah, I dump the other 2 funds 'cos I tried to diversify into local funds too quick; overbought and at the wrong time. Was having zero local funds in the beginning of the year.

(For info to others) Actually, all local funds are making gains YTD, from 8% to over 20%. PISEF is at the bottom segment (less than 10% YTD), just doing better than PIDF and PFSF which I had dumped.


I don't look at the NAV price per se. It is meaningless on its own; except to have a quick-and-dirty ranking of all the funds - discussed in a previous post.

More important is the last column in the "Fund Prices" list, the percentage changed.

PBIEF up 0.91% - my local play (and the sole equity fund) in a 2nd portfolio which I'm switched into in drips whenever there is a dip in KLCI.

I didn't switched out any this month as originally intended, and it is still 50% of the portfolio. Am following Paul Merriman on buy-and-hold strategy for the long term; if I switched some out, I wouldn't know when to switch back in. In the long run, the switching fees will slowly add up; and it would be unnecessary expenses.

Hopefully not. If the holdings can change overnight, it would defeats its mandate and the purpose of investing into the fund.

PM funds seemed to be more stable with little changes to its stable of horses... which is more suited for long term buy-and-hold investment.

I thought my explanation without jargon was understandable.

Read it again, sentence by sentence, the explanation is there; you don't have to "take my word for it" as said by pinkspider.

You are mixing up NAV price (per unit) and NAV. NAV is the jargon. What is it? It is Net Asset Value; the value of the fund.

Get this right, and the confusion should clear away.

It's like heat transfer - no energy is lost, just energy transformed to another kind of energy.

NAV of the fund = NAV price per unit x units held.

After distribution, NAV price drops. But more units are created. So, NAV of the fund remains the same.

It does not become cheaper. Since the true value is still the same. If you buy RM10,000 before or after distribution, you still get RM10,000 worth of units.

So how to benefit or profit from it?

And if you holding a fund long enough (more than a year), and checking its NAV price and the total value of your fund on regular basis, you could also learn by first-hand experience. And it is one of the better way of learning, putting your money in (and place your bets!)

Of course he is serious. Right up your alley of selecting funds that are below debut price of 0.25. Cheap and good value!

What's going on? All bonds & income funds got heavily hammered!
Losing much more than equity funds in a day.

The worse hits are the islamic bonds and sukuks; wiping out all the gains made in 2 months.

Here's something for the weekend; updated the "Ultimate" portfolio (copycat version).

YTD till 21/11/2013.

Benchmarks YTD%:
Public Sukuk Fund 2.66%
PB Sukuk Fund 2.66%
Public Islamic Infrastructure Bond Fund 2.66%
Public Islamic Money Market Fund 2.56%
PB Asia Real Estate Income Fund 5.30%
Public Far-East Property & Resorts Fund 6.71%
Public Industry Fund 6.26%
Public Select Focus Fund 15.51%
Public Islamic Opportunities Fund 31.94%
Public Ittikal Sequel Fund 10.03%
Public Far-East Telco & Infrastructure Fund 3.25%
Public Islamic Asia Dividend Fund 6.88%
Public South-East Asia Select Fund 0.59%
Public Global Select Fund 21.16%

Funds YTD%:
Public Sukuk Fund 1.70%
PB Sukuk Fund 1.81%
Public Islamic Infrastructure Bond Fund 3.47%
Public Islamic Money Market Fund 2.58%
PB Asia Real Estate Income Fund 4.02%
Public Far-East Property & Resorts Fund 11.09%
Public Industry Fund 8.82%
Public Select Focus Fund 7.73%
Public Islamic Opportunities Fund 25.07%
Public Ittikal Sequel Fund 13.68%
Public Far-East Telco & Infrastructure Fund 12.32%
Public Islamic Asia Dividend Fund 3.15%
Public South-East Asia Select Fund 2.14%
Public Global Select Fund 23.84%

Total YTD% weighted to the portfolio (with 6% on each of the 10 equity funds and 10% each on the 4 sukuk/money-market funds):
Benchmarks: 7.51%
Portfolio: 7.67%

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Comments:
1. PSFF (among last year's topmost funds) is well below its benchmark.
2. PIOF is the top local fund at 25%; but is also below its benchmark.
3. The sukuk funds is below FD's YTD rate of 2.66%.
4. Portfolio YTD is a respectable 7.67%. As at 5-Sept, portfolio was 5.99%.

Will be introducing another model with slightly different set of funds; it would be the model that I will restructure my current portfolio to for next year and coming years for the long term.

Cheers.

Model portfolio: The Supreme 30/70 Buy-and-Hold Portfolio.

Let’s recap first on Paul Merriman’s Ultimate Buy-and-hold Portfolio. It is 60% on equities with asset allocations on small cap value (24%), large cap value (24%) and property funds (12%); equally distributed between local and foreign funds; and equal weightings on each fund with 6% on each of the 10 asset allocations. The 40% on money-market funds is for portfolio stability. His research had shown that, based on the S&P index, a 90% of a portfolio on equities has a risk of taking a 50% lost in any particular year. When the equities are reduced to 60%, the lost is statistically reduced to 25%.

Not everyone can stomach a 50% lost, thus the 40/60 recommendation. Remember this is a buy-and-hold portfolio strategy. If you can’t stomach the lost and exit, you’re not following any strategy as you have thrown the strategy out of the window and abandon it.

The Supreme 30/70 is 70% on the equities, slightly more aggressive since we (most of us) have EPF and other savings. Also Public Mutual funds is known to be more conservative compared to other funds. But how aggressive it is and how high a lost can it reach in any particular year in future? Frankly, I don’t know.

So you will need to adjust the ratio based on your own judgement (and research) to suit your needs. For simpler maths, I use 5% instead of 6% on each equity fund, thus it is simpler to adjust the ratio and the number of equity funds. 70% would be 14 funds.

The Supreme 30/70 portfoliio is 30% money-market, 10% property and real estate, 10% ASEAN region, 30% local and 20% foreign funds.

The property and ASEAN funds are “core” funds. Core funds are the core of a portfolio; other funds in the portfolio may be substituted with similar funds, but not the core funds.

Let’s get the money-market funds out of the way first. As there are both Public and PB funds, there should be at least 2 money-market funds. Again for simplicity, I have 3 funds with 10% each.
*PB Cash Management Fund
*Public Islamic Money Market Fund
Public Money Market Fund

(* EPF approved funds.)

Now, the 14 equity funds as follows.

The core funds:
1. Far-East Property & Resorts Fund
2. PB Asia Real Estate Fund
3. South-East Asia Select Fund
4. PB Asean Dividend Fund

The local funds are:
5.Public Islamic Opportunities Fund
6. Public Islamic Treasures Growth Fund
7. Public Strategic Smallcap Fund
8. *Public Regular Savings Fund
9. *Public Optimal Growth Fund
10. *Public Islamic Select Enterprises Fund

Half of them are on small cap funds (that are open for investment). Their benchmarks, respectively:
FTSE Bursa Malaysia Small Cap Shariah Index
90% FTSE Bursa Malaysia Small Cap Shariah Index and 10% 3-Month Islamic Interbank Money Market
FTSE Bursa Malaysia Small Cap
FTSE Bursa Malaysia Top 100 Index
FTSE Bursa Malaysia Top 100 Index
FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Shariah

And lastly, the foreign funds:
11. Public Global Select Fund
12. Public Australia Equity Fund
13. Singapore Equity Fund
14. PB Asia Emerging Growth Fund

Playing to the strengths and weaknesses of Public Mutual, funds that have large holdings on China/Hong Kong are avoided and excluded from selection.

So how did this model portfolio performed so far? YTD till 21/11/2013: 8.66%.

Cheers.

At times, investing in mutual funds is like playing a game of chess. Which move to make? Well, it depends on the position of the all the pieces on the board.

Take a look at the other funds and the entire portfolio; how are their positions? What role does this particular fund play in the portfolio? Is it in an attacking or defensive position? Or is it a sacrifice piece that will not have a major impact on the game if it is captured but will enable the other pieces to make winning moves?

One advantage over chess is that we don't take turns to make a move, and don't have to make any move if we don't have to.

Ahh, the fine print that is not stated in the website. Thanks.

Yup... 1 ringgit 1 point. If achieve Mutual gold status with minimum of 120k, get free personal accident insurance coverage equals to the number of points, up to age 74.

Almost forgotten this free insurance... interesting info from PM site:

Extended Coverage:
Motor cycling, strike, riot and civil commotion, hunting, hijacking, amateur sporting activities, intoxication, insect bites and animal attacks, unprovoked murder and assault, drowning, suffocation through smoke, fumes and poisonous gas, food poisoning, natural perils, i.e. earthquake, volcanic eruption, tidal waves and lightning, exposure and disappearance.

Used to think that claiming a PA insurance is only in a road accident; apparently not... one can get food poisoning in a kenduri or fall off a cliff when trekking in a neighbourhood hill.

Insect bites and animal attacks: Glad to know that I'm covered if going to Taman Negara.

Drowning: okay, I'm also covered in Cameron Highlands.

Bought it in April near its peak? Chasing hot fund?

1. If purchased earlier in Jan, there would be some gains. Its YTD is +9.19%.
2. Try to do DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) next time in any purchases, instead of placing all bets at once. Not easy to time it right, the market can go either direction any moment. Even professionals don't get it right all the time.
3. I was chasing PFEPRF too; but bought it much, much earlier and sold all by May. It went up too steep in Jan & Feb.
4. Will enter it again next month... part of portfolio plan for 2014.

uh oh, sukuks and islamic bonds got hammered again. Sukuks bought in May just went negative.

Win some... lose some... if solely depending on UTs for retirement income this year, would be eating rice porridge.