2k is nothing much... be patient and save more first. Do you have enough emergency fund? Most people get rich from their jobs and savings. Only a rare few can boast that they make their wealth in the stock market, and most likely they are stock brokers, and that's their daily job too.

IMHO, it is easier and a more efficient use of money to have savings and reduce the size of a loan than trying to have a passive income to cover a bigger loan and its bigger interest.

But if you are saving for retirement, then go ahead and start as early as possible. Use the DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) method and buy regularly in the same amount regardless of market trend. Don't follow the market trend and financial reports, regard them as "noise" and ignore them.

I would prefer a local conservative fund with benchmark on the KLCI, and as the savings grow, add another 2 or 3 funds, still remaining in the local market but slightly more aggressive such as a small cap fund. (Check my past postings on these funds.)

Only when the size of the savings is at or near to financial target, would I consider diversifying into a full balanced portfolio with foreign funds.

Why? Malaysia is still a developing country, and there's still lots of room to grow in its economy. Secondly, any local fund company/manager understand the local market better than they do on a foreign market. The local funds will always performed better than the foreign funds in the long term of several decades.

Cheers.

1. Go to KWSP website, find the list of approved funds, throw out PB series funds, throw out the bond funds.

Here you go, list of approved Public series funds (equity only) effective 1st April 2014.
Public Dividend Select Fund
Public Focus Select Fund
Public Index Fund
Public Industry Fund
Public Islamic Alpha-40 Growth
Public Islamic Dividend Fund
Public Islamic Equity Fund
Public Islamic Optimal Growth Fund
Public Islamic Sector Select Fund
Public Islamic Select Enterprises Fund
Public Islamic Select Treasures Fund
Public Ittikal Fund
Public Optimal Growth Fund
Public Regular Savings Fund
Public Sector Select Fund
Public Select Alpha-30 Fund

2. Go to Morningstar Malaysia website, select "Public Mutual" in the Local Rep field, then check the above funds for their number of stars. Pick out those with 4 or 5 stars. You can get more info on the fund by clicking the fund name.

https://my.morningstar.com/ap/fundselect/results.aspx

3. For more up-to-date performance on the funds, go to Public Mutual website, look up the fund performance chart. It compares the fund against its benchmark.
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx

4. Instead of dumping all at once or every 3 months, you could also consider dumping the whole withdrawal into a bond fund and then regularly switch out at least 1000 units at a time from the bond fund to the equity fund. I would suggest either Public Islamic Income Fund or Public Select Bond Fund. With 24k, you can spread out the purchases over 12-24 months, as 1000 units is about 1k... using DCA investment strategy.

Cheers.

===========
Edit:
1. Instead of parking temporary in bond funds, a money market fund could be better.
2. Don't sign any empty forms for future transactions with the agent. Sign up Public Mutual ONLINE, and do the switchings on your own. Once you're a registered user, the only transaction that cannot do online is EPF withdrawals.



This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Mar 18 2014, 01:33 PM

... it's nothing new! I posted this almost a year ago, calling it the "Always Pot Black Strategy". And I'm doing it.

I am, fortunately, able to withdraw more than I need in each new purchase; and it is a sizable amount to spread over more than 12 months. It saves the hassle of meeting my agent every 3 months or so. Yes, there is a cost and lost in EPF dividend in parking the excessive monies in a temporary bond/money market fund . But I put more weight on lesser meetings with my agent and getting my thumbs stained!

I also do a bit of timing in making the switchings, so maybe (maybe as I have not really calculated the differences) I might have recovered that cost as well, or maybe more than breakeven.

The bond funds are not doing so well recently. In the longer term of several years, maybe they will perform better than money market fund. But in the short term of several months (maybe up to 18-24 months), no.

For example, they went negative in January. If you entered in December, it will take some time to catch up a money market fund.

Usual gains per month: Bond 0.26-0.28%. MM 0.22-0.24%
January lost: Bond -0.22%
No. of months to catch up: -0.22 / (0.26-0.22) = 5.5 months.

Then if maybe another negative set back in April or May...

for info, the example in the previous post is not out of thin air.
In January, PI Income was -0.22%. While P Select Bond 0.06%, MM 0.24% and Islamic MM0.23%.

Just spotted an error in the calculation. It should be:
Usual gains per month: Bond 0.26-0.28%. MM 0.22-0.24%
January gains: Bond -0.22%. MM 0.22%
Difference in January: -0.22 - 0.22 = -0.44
No. of months to catch up: -0.44 / (0.26-0.22) = 11 months.

A Sukuk fund I entered last May is giving 0.36%. If using a simple annualised formula by dividing by 365 days, it is 0.45% pa. If I had entered into a MM fund, I could gained that in just 2 months!

the full list of EPF approved bond and mm funds...
wef 1st Apr 2014
Public Enhanced Bond Fund
Public Islamic Enhanced Bond Fund
Public Islamic Income Fund
Public Islamic Select Bond Fund
Public Islamic Strategic Bond
Public Select Bond Fund
Public Strategic Bond

Public Islamic Money Market Fund

The fees have been changed. It is now 1% for bonds. (Not sure for MM as the released statement by PM is only on bonds, no mention on MM.) Equity fund still the same 3%. But 1% is deducted when switching from low-load bonds to equity.

So buy straight into equity or buy bond then switch to equity will be same total 3%.

If you have old 0.25% low-load bonds, switching to equity is now 2.75%. It was 3% previously.

Switching fee do not apply, as it is low-load to loaded units. So don't worry about the 90 days restriction.

Cheers.

===============
PS. The above 3% service charge fee is on EPF withdrawals... for money out of your own pocket, enough said!


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Mar 19 2014, 04:03 PM

I am assuming that you meant that you filled in some forms with your agent on 10/3. If I'm wrong, just ignore my reply.

Most likely the application is still under process ie. left dangling somewhere at the branch office. Why? Maybe your agent did not know about the "new" rule (which was in placed months ago) that investor need to fill in another questionnaire on investor's suitability to a new fund.

The entire process should not take more than a week if done correctly. If I'm not mistaken, the application form to EPF is scanned when it is handed over the counter at the branch office; and it is checked by software. Any errors is immediately known, and the form handed back to the agent.

If everything is correctly done, and handed over the counter before 4.00pm, the transaction will be on that day's NAV price even though EPF released the money to Public Mutual several days later.

Maybe call your agent first.

Based on current NAV price!!! That is wrong!

NAV price goes down after each income distribution. It should be on the total value ie. total number of units x current NAV price.

Furthermore if one is willing to go into detail, each purchase should be tracked on its own. For example:

Purchase Date // Amount Paid // No. of Units // Current NAV // Current Value // Gains (RM) // Gains (%)
1/3/2012, RM2000, 8000.00, 0.30, RM2,400.00, RM400.00, 20.00%
1/6/2012, RM2000, 7843.47, 0.30, RM2,352.94, RM352.94, 17.65%

And based on the number of days holding the units, an annualised percentage can also be calculated if needed. I'm using a simple formula (non compounded formula) to estimate it: Gains % / ((number of days) / 365).
Ie. 20% / (750/365) = 9.73% pa.

(After a distribution, check the number of units distributed, and then attributed them proportionately to each purchase. The attributions may not be 100% accurate, but it does its job in getting a good estimation.)

Cheers.

P.S. Let's not make unfounded sweeping statements...

PPS. 11k on 10k? Wow!!!


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Mar 24 2014, 01:11 PM

ok, another reply, since maybe I was reading it the wrong way.

Invested 10k since 2012, and currently it is about 11k. Thus about 10% gain in 2 years, thus about 5% pa. Right?

5% cannot be correct:
1) because the fund gained more than 10% in 2013.
2) so the purchase cannot be all in 2012, but spread over 2012 and 2013.
3) so need to go into details before coming to a quick conclusion that it is 5%, and EPF is better...

Cheers.

It is up to you to make the effort or you can go on making misinformed assumptions. And if you know when you bought and how much, you can trace back by using the Performance Chart in Public Mutual website.

For example, below is the performance of PDSF from xxx date till the latest date 21/03/2014 (last Friday).
1/04/2012, 19.99%
1/07/2012, 18.87%
1/10/2012, 14.22%
1/01/2013, 11.35%
1/04/2013, 10.60%
1/07/2013, 4.50%
1/10/2013, 3.68%
1/01/2014, -0.80%

If we 'annualised' the figures:
10.15%
10.97%
9.68%
9.33%
10.93%
6.25%
7.85%
-3.70%

And ignoring, the last figure which was less than 3 months ago...

It's not really that hard if we make the effort.

Cheers. Stay invested.

Is it time to sell or is it the right time to buy?

Are you following the market and all the news? With the indices moving strongly in the past several days, and to take advantage of the volatility and not to lose the opportunity, is it time to buy or time to sell?

Before you decide which direction to take, this is a timely article, though it was written in 2011, for the weekend: "Be an investor or a trader, but not both."
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/be-an-inv...both-2011-08-14

“And if you always thought you were an investor, but you’ve been watching the news and think it might be time to start making trades,” he added, “good luck to you because there are at least as many opportunities to make mistakes as to make money.”

Cheers. Stay invested.

Here's another article (from MarketWatch) for light reading: "This stock market needs a correction." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-stoc...link=MW_popular

Actually its title do not reflect its content. It's on the premise that investors are driven by their emotions. "What now? Contain your emotions. This market is in transition, and transitions are rarely as smooth as we would like."

BTW ignore the comments in this particular article... too much trolling unlike other MarketWatch articles which I linked previously.

Cheers. Stay invested.

================

PS. Why bring up these articles in this post and previous post? Just a reminder to stay true to long term objective of investing in mutual funds, and not get caught up too much with the market.

1. If you're in the accumulation stage, continue doing DDI or DCA investment. Invest (in equity funds) as you save.

2. If you already have a matured portfolio (and no longer adding much more to it), and counting on it for retirement income, maybe try to balance the risk and not have more than 50% in equities.

Cheers.

Yes, you will have 2 accounts on the same fund.

There is no advantage in selecting "no agent" since the service charge is the same, other than conveying to Public Mutual that we do not always need any agent and that the service charge could be lower especially with PMO.

Anyway, if you are investing long term, there will bound to be another agent servicing you, as you may have move to a new town, or the agent had resigned/retired and no longer active.

Yes, there is a transfer form that you will need to get your agent to sign to transfer all the accounts under him/her to another agent. Me, myself has several agents, and I just let it be... though I had to do a bit of extra work to keep track to avoid unnecessary extra switching fees.

Cheers.

To New Investors,

Talking of transfer forms to release accounts to another agent, it would be a good idea to have the agent prepared the transfer form during the first meeting itself when you are just starting to invest... and you keep the form in case you need to execute it in near future.

There are several obvious reasons which I don't need to explain.

Cheers. Stay Invested.

The only fee we are paying is the service charge in each new investment; so no, it is not possible to have any other extra charges later on (other than the annual management and trustee fees which are 'hidden'). There is no redemption or exit fee either.

AFAIK, there is a transfer form (normally used to transfer an account to another agent) which I think could also be used if the other agent is the "no agent".

The "no agent" actually has a name and an agent code... "PMB (WI)"; it will later show in the account details (in PMO accounts description) when you do Initial Investment and select "NONE" as the agent's name.

If you are purchasing manually at the branch office, I supposed you could cross out the agent's name and code on the form. Leaving it blank might open the possibility that the counter clerk would filled in any agent's name and code; which you do not want.

Someone had also mentioned that he had made an EPF purchase at the branch office without the aid of any agent.

Either way, with or without an agent, the service charges are still the same and Public Mutual has not given any discount when you're doing all the paperwork yourself, whether online or offline.

But there are some funds that are with free PA insurance... so I guess agents do deserved their service charges in some certain situations.

Cheers.

Investment 101

Okay, time for some basic investment education. (Another rainy day story.)

What does the following means to you?

A) You will only profit if you buy and hold the fund for at least 3 years.
B) It is a volatile fund and it could lose money during the first 3 years; but profit is almost guaranteed after 3 years.
C) The fund is a volatile fund and you will profit from it. The longer you hold it, the more profit you will gain.
D) It is a volatile fund. "Buy low, sell high" is the best strategy. So pull out from the fund whenever there is a profit, whether it happens within the next 3 years or not.

The above thoughts may go through your mind (or maybe not). I used to think like that; since that's the fund's stated objective. So I believed that the fund manager could implement the objective and pick the right stocks at the right time. And maybe he did. But why no profit after 5 years? palm face, smack forehead, whatever.

So what went wrong? Fund manager an idiot? Maybe he is; but I picked that fund among all the funds that are in the market, so I'm the bigger financial idiot. And yet there were people who said they profit from the same fund.

So what really went wrong?

What was wrong was I did not fully understanding what a variable priced fund is. I had confused it with a fixed priced fund, something like EPF. Just deposit your money, and the fund manager will do his financial magic.

In a fixed priced fund, the fund averages all the deposits or purchases it collected throughout the year, and pay the dividends at the end of the year. Repeat: the fund averages all the purchases throughout the year.

I maybe not correct, since I'm not a financial wizard, but I assumed that the fund manager at EPF could also withdraw 100% (or close to 100%) out of any share market, since EPF is mandated to return a paltry 2.5%; whereas the private equity fund is mandated to hold at least 70% in equities at all times.

So these 2 little facts when combined together, made me lost money.

Hey, I did make money in some other funds. So I'm a genius after all! Plain b@lls#&!!.... It was purely coincidence and happenstance.

You see, I was betting!!! I was betting big. So that's why I sometimes win, sometimes lose. Very simple reason, is it not? And it is obvious that I was buying the funds in lump sum.

Cheers. Stay Invested.

PS. When I see that quote again, my thinking now is not buy and hold for at least 3 years; buy and invest regularly for at least 3 years. DCA, DCA, DCA!

Depends on which one you're referring to. One has a nav/unit of about 1.13 and the other is about 0.41.

Mind you, one is a growth fund whose distribution policy is incidental while the other is an income fund with annual distribution policy. And it, income distribution, do not mirror its past year performance.

Cheers. Stay Invested.

P.S.
Unless you are expecting them as a means of financial support, and have set the distribution instruction to 'payout', these distribution announcements are non news and meaningless.

And if you're in retirement age or about to, would be good to learn more about income funds and annual income distributions. Maybe income funds should be a greater part of the portfolio.

BTW this year's Master Prospectus listed PIDF as 'semi annual'.

MGQP = Mutual Gold Qualifying Points. It is one point for each ringgit invested (including the service charge). 120,000 points will qualified you some benefits, ie. free monthly magazine, free switches, etc.

Calculation of the 5.5% service charge:
Invested value = RM2000 / (100% + 5.5%) = RM1895.73
Service charge = RM2000 - RM1895.73 = RM104.27

Number of units bought:
RM1895.73 / NAV price at date bought = Number of Units.

Balance NAV = Units x current NAV price.

Within PMO (Public Mutual Online), you can check out the past transactions and it will shows the above service charge and the transacted NAV price on the purchased date.

=================
Question: In the first post, you mentioned February. In the 2nd post, it was "since January". I suspect it could also be Jan/Feb 2013, not 2014; since this fund has gained more than 10% YTD (Year-To-Date).

Secondly, it is a Balanced fund. If you want to trade (meaning invest for very short term), you should go for the more aggressive Public Indonesia Select fund with 5% higher gain at above 15% YTD.

Cheers.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 5 2014, 02:47 PM

To know the exact profit or lost in percentage, instead of calculating it manually:

1. Get the purchased date; go to "Transaction History" in PMO. It shows transactions up to the past 12 months.
2. Then see the Performance Chart. http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx
3. Select the Fund name in the chart.
4. Select the 3rd option "Date range from: dd/mm/yyyy
5. Fill the Purchased date into the above field , and then click "Show Chart" button.
6. The chart will show the ROI (Total Returns) just below the chart.

Note: The 'Total Returns' is on the invested amount, ie RM1895.73.

==============
Yes, with Indo Select fund, the profit is from about 15% to above 20% in the past several months.

And yes, more aggressive is equal to higher risk.

Anyway, the risk is very limited with 2k. So kachang putih. Should dump in 200k, then the profit is from 30k to 40k. And this is just in 3 months.

Cheers.

==============
What goes up, can also come down. If it can go +20%, it can also go -20%.

+20% gain = 20% - 5.5% = 14.5%. And this without the exit penalty of 90 days.

If within 90 days: +20% = 20% - 5.5% - 0.75% = 13.75%

But if no luck and buy at wrong time:
-20% lost = -20% - 5.5% - 0.75% = -26.25%. Which is RM52,500 lost if we bet 200k. Wah, this so much more fun!

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 5 2014, 05:08 PM

About time to bump up this thread and keep it alive...

Are you saving enough for retirement? The stats I just read is worrisome.

"But studies going all the way back to the early 2000s have shown that retirees quickly exhaust their EPF savings. A survey done in 2003 showed that 14% of retirees finished their EPF savings within three years, 50% within five years and 70% within 10 years, mainly to pay off debts." (http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2014/05/24/Kenanga-Investors-PRS-journey-Fund-still-confident-of-holding-the-upperhand-despite-late-entry.aspx/)


"... the sobering fact is that more than four-fifths of active members have less than RM100,000 while 71% of members retire with less than RM50,000."

And I would guess that you, who are reading and browsing this forum and thread, would be among the select small group of people who have more than above, and/or are planning towards a richer retirement nest egg.

Cheers. Stay invested.

=====================

“Banks are giving an average of 16% EPF contributions for staff retention purposes,” he says.
I know someone working in a bank, and he's getting 18%. 15% was the norm in the plantation industry. While I'm not in both of these industries, I had to request my boss to readjust my pay such that he is giving me higher EPF.

Remember, this is tax-free money... much better and more convenient than getting more taxed money and then buying PRS on your own.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 27 2014, 01:51 PM

Tax-free vs. Tax-relief... a big difference.
Tax-relief only occurs if one has tax; and there is the 3k ceiling as well.

I was in the 26% tax bracket. Say if boss wanted to increase my 10k by 5%, which I would just let it stay in my bank account, it was no real benefit to me.

But $500/month (plus the increased $60 in EPF), it would be better for me to get boss to pay 18% EPF than previous 12%. So the extra $600/month x 12 = $7200 going into EPF is tax-free. Which is well above the tax-relief ceiling.

And if someone is on the lower end, adjusting salary for more EPF could maybe keep him within BR1M bracket and entitlement. Free $650... and growing every year.

============

PRS 3% fee? If so, it would be better to go into an EPF-approved equity fund with a longer track record using money from EPF's account one...

Cheers. Stay invested.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 27 2014, 03:25 PM