Fresh from the press:

Australian sharemarket dives after horror week.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/aus...010-114bon.html

- Take a look at the performance chart on the Aussie fund. Its benchmark is S&P/ASX 200, adjusted to ringgit... it has given up all its YTD gains of about 10% since early Sept, now underwater -3.xx%. With today's drop of 2%, it will be about -5% YTD.

And the million dollar question: Will it go further down?

... not very helpful to those deciding whether to get in or not, in the next 30 minutes (before the 4pm cut-off time.) LOL

TQ. You had just put $1 million (worth of advice) into my pocket.

Now, logging off the internet; to watch Najib...

LOL I was wondering why Dow was selected as benchmark when I've bookmarked S&P 500 to gauge the US market/economic situation ...

It’s time to ditch the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-time-...rage-2014-10-10

What is the reason behind the consolidation? I don't think David means to say move to new funds, it's a typo, and it should be "more new funds"; in reference to Public Mutual marketing habit of introducing new funds when the market has rallied for some time and new investors wanting to join the bandwagon.

I still stand by my previous post on 'yearly champions' and that funds will rotate among themselves on the ranking list; so it is best to spread your holdings to a handful of funds instead of being too selective.

PIOF is already closed to new investments. If you have DDI on it, don't stop.

Other funds, same thing too... don't stop the DDI or any other regular purchases. Except for one which was recently launched, all of them are stable funds which would be on anyone's recommended list.

Since you are following a regular purchasing strategy, then you already knew what you are doing and the reason behind the strategy. (Which is to average out the market ups and downs.)

So follow through, and continue the DDIs and regular purchases.

Yes, that's the meaning of 'consolidation'.

But why? Expenses/inflation growing and finding the savings getting too tough?

So, you're having PEF, along with PDSF, PIDF, PRSF, PISEF, PFSF, PISGIF & PIOF. All local equities, in different sectors/categories as implied in their names... equity fund, dividend select, islamic dividend, regular savings, selected enterprises, focus select, growth & income, and islamic opportunities... none stood out like a sore thumb that required intervention... so it's the same message of the previous post, and I still don't see any reason to consolidate.

If you want to cut down the regular purchases and amount to invest each month, maybe because you already achieved your targeted sum of investment, then stop putting new money into all of them; but continue holding all of them.

Which fund to stop additional investments? Just toss a coin... as said they are very similar (except for PIOF which is small caps and closed). My picks would be about as good as your choice... or the coin's.

(To consolidate means that you switch out from one fund and into another fund, why spend money on switching fees when you don't need to do so?)

1) Buy when it is low... keep it for several years.
In other words, we are investing for the future; and if we are optimistic regarding the future (which directly implying growth in the economy), then everyday is low price compare to higher price in the future.

So, anytime is a good time to purchase and invest.

2) 2 main options:

A) Save and invest as you work and earn. Meaning regular purchases every month or so... for several years or as long as you like or according to your plan.

B) You have a big sum of money. Which you can either invest it all at once, or split it several times.

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

On tracking the fund/investment... the column on "sales charge/unit" is redundant.

The "NAV/unit" is also redundant. You don't use it calculate the profit/loss. (Distributions will affect it.)

Total Units x current NAV = Current Value
(1386.99 x 0.6559 = 909.73)

Current Value - Actual Invested Amount = Profit/Loss
(909.73 - 947.87 = -38.14)

Profit/Loss % = (Profit/loss) / Actual Invested Amount = -4.02%

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

How to handle Distribution Units: Pro-rata it among the several purchases.

Distribution Units = ???.??

1386.99 units + 703.79 units = 2090.78 units

1386.99/2090.78 = 66.34%
703.79/2090.78 = 33.66%

1/10/2014 purchase, add ???.?? x 66.34% units.
8/10/2014 purchase, add ???.?? x 33.66% units.

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

Ways to improve the table:
- I would put the Fund Name in a column, instead of a heading.
- Annualized the profit/loss %.

You can checked the fund performance using the Performance chart or using the MorningStar rating website.

http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx

http://my.morningstar.com/ap/main1/default.aspx

You can also search this forum/topic for any past discussions on any specific issues by using the search button on the lower left...

1. Distribution is normally at financial year-end, which is 31st March for PRSF. You will get a statement by mail or you can checked it within PMO (Public Mutual Online)... transactions history... 2 days after the distribution date.

(It can be added directly to the "total units" eg. 1386.99 + xxx.xx units. So, no need extra column...)

2. See below, if you're using Excel:

For those interested, the columns in my spreadsheet as follows:

Fund Name / Acct # / Purchased Date / Days Held / Amount Invested / Units / NAV price / Current Amount / Gains(Lost) / Gains(Lost) % / Annualised % / MGQP.

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

Those funds I switched out, I put into another tab. The columns as follows:

Fund Name / Acct # / Purchased Date / Switched Date / Days Held / Amount Invested / Units / NAV price / Current Amount / Gains(Lost) / Gains(Lost) % / Annualised % / Switched To Fund.

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

... with summations at the bottom of relevant columns.

(In the past 2-3 years, already switched and rolled more than half mil... but total gains )

If anyone of you are wondering why I advocate regular purchases and also mentioned about ignoring the market, but yet posted about market situations from time to time... it's not a contradiction.

1. I'm keeping tabs on the market because I have too much free time. It's sort of a hobby.

2. I don't act solely on the market trend on whether to buy or sell. It is mainly on internal portfolio situation ie. the desired equity/bond ratio, and foreign/local equities ratio.

3. I made a drastic revamp last Dec. Pull everything into money-market funds... and slowly add back the equity funds according to a regular monthly plan. (Don't worry... I have free switches. )

4. When the market dips, I sometimes moved forward the monthly purchases by a week or so. It is still following a set regular purchase plan. (No point chasing the dips everyday, and making additional investments almost everyday...)

So hope those new to the forum understand what's going on... it's not say one thing, do another thing.

Cheers.

PS. You choose and invest into UT because you don't need to monitor the market too closely. Always remember the reason why you selected to invest with mutual funds.

edited: edit on the 'free' switches sentence...


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Oct 17 2014, 07:30 PM

It depends on which is more important to you, the growth of the fund or the investment. It is without service charge for the former, and with service charge for the latter.

I do something a bit more complex (and since I'm using a excel spreadsheet)... I put the service charge into the formula as a reminder.

=1000 - 52.13
(1000 is the invested value. 52.13 is the service charge.)

As mentioned in a previous post, I have 2 tabs. The 1st tab is the main page of all the funds I'm having. The 2nd tab is a history of all the funds I realised, either redeemed or switched out.

Hence in the main tab, it is without the service charge, and I'm monitoring and comparing the growth of all the funds, and also the same fund which I purchased at different dates.

When I switched out (or redeemed) any funds, I moved it to the 2nd tab. And in this 2nd tab, the actual gain of the investment is more important, so I add back the service charge by tweaking the formula:

=1000 - 52.13 + 52.13

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

The above method can also be used when there's no switching to another fund, or redemption of a fund.

For example, there is a long list of entries of the same fund due to regular monthly purchases or DDI. The entries can be trimmed and consolidate into one entry, by treating it as if it is switched and realised, but to the same fund.

Do this at the appropriate time like calendar year-end or financial year-end.

(Note: the consolidated entry back into the 1st main tab, will then be the invested value with service charge.)

Example: 7 purchases of the same fund at different times, and going to consolidate the top 5 entries (and realised their gains), at year end.

Main tab:
1/1/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/2/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/3/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/4/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/5/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/8/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/10/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...

1) Move the top 5 entries to the 2nd tab.
2) Sum up their current values as on 31/12/2014.
3) Add new 31/12/2014 entry into the main tab with the total Current Values (as on 31/12/2014) as the purchased/invested value.

Main tab will look like below:
1/8/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
1/10/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...
31/12/2014 ....... blah, blah, blah, blah...

Eventually, after years of investing and switching or consolidation of the entries, the main tab will reflect the 'real' invested value (which is plus all the service charges and any switching fees incurred.)

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Oct 21 2014, 07:46 PM

looking after the short term as well as the long term... but there is a cost to it (the pulling in the funds and restarting and maybe switching directions too) when the timing is not right, ... but that is not important when there's no new money flowing in and having some fun rolling the old money to consume time; and do some 'experiment' on new ideas and test the nerves and threshold of pain.

Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi.

Terrible month... market fell sharply in the first 2 weeks, then thankfully recovered.

- 2nd portfolio, which uses the always-pot-black strategy on EPF local funds, is now positive for the month.

- 1st portfolio, still in red for the month - only slightly underwater, and hopefully can fully recover with today's market gains, plus tomorrow's if market finished Oct in the green.

- got the opportunity to top-up Aussie fund; not perfectly timed... missed by 1 day and it ran up more than 2% before I got onto it.

But all these gains are short term... yet to see what's coming in Nov. It's like eating pizza... feeling good tonight.

The eating pizza analogy was from Paul Merriman, who has another new article, reminding us the objective of investing into UT:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-lessons...0-29?link=MW_RM

"First, you should know your expectations, your goals and what you need from your investments.... Second, and crucial during volatile market conditions, you should know how much risk you are willing and able to stomach..."

Cheers. Stay invested.

If that is true, this board would have been getting lots of replies... maybe shutting down Lowyat.

If that is true, you will see agents going amok on the streets... throwing stones at Public Mutual and bank branches.

If that is true, investors would be pulling out money from other funds... maybe some fund companies will tutup kedai.

Okay, before everyone jumps with joy, this campaign is for newbies.

It is trying to copy FundSuperMart's Regular Savings Plan (RSP); where new investors can start a new fund with minimum of RM100 instead of the usual minimum initial investment amount of RM1000.

So the new investor can easily start off with just a couple or several hundreds ringgits and able to diversify into 2 or more funds at once. As mentioned in a previous post, this would be a truer DCA method instead of starting with a big amount of 1k and then DDI with a lopsided minimum of 100.

I said 'trying' to emulate RSP - because in the list of selected funds, there is only 2 funds. (Dividend Select Fund & Islamic Dividend Fund).

A good start anyway... and hopefully, but don't hold your breath waiting, there are more promotions coming.

Cheers.

Arigato Gozaimasu!

The last day in Oct was much better than expected, thanks to the Nippon stimulus.

So, portfolio 1 ended Oct almost touching its peak level - which was in the 2nd half of July. Islamic treasure growth fund was dropped... lucky to drop it before it dropped further; and Ittikal was added during the dip.

Ittikal was among the better funds (if not the best) in the past 3 months (above 2%); while PITGF lost more than 5%.

So for now, the small cap funds is down to only 1 fund - Strategic Smallcap. The other 3 funds, PITGF aside, are closed.

In the volatility of the market during the past 3 months, some big/mid cap funds like Ittikal, PIDF and PISEF performed better; while some others like PRSF & PDSF just managed or nearly managed to recover the losses.

Lesson learnt: it pays to diversify and have a handful of funds in the same category instead of only 1 or 2.

Cheers. Stay Invested.

P.S. Though I'm posting in this Public Mutual thread and am holding their funds, it do not by any means that I am endorsing Public Mutual and their funds.

The experience and info shared is just as applicable to any other fund companies. Just that this thread is less chatty and easier to find back my own posts... sometimes it is necessary to review back what were my thoughts and how it changed.

As mentioned in a recent post, their customer service is getting poorer and poorer... which is not unexpected when an oganisation do not communicate directly (through its staff or website) with its customers but only through agents.

Yes, that list of closed funds was long gone from its website. I had to manually find out which funds are no longer available to fresh investments by going through, in its online service, each name one by one to spot which fund is not there.

Imagine a would-be potential customer, reading of a fund from Morningstar or elsewhere, and wanting to buy the fund and only to be told it was closed at the very last minute after getting through all the hoopla of setting up an appointment with an agent.

Some may be fine with it and consider another fund, but I (being particularly tired of any 'bait-and-switch' marketing tactic) will be among those who will not step into the shop again.

Portfolio will take a hard knock... S&P down 2%, KLCI -2.5%, and small caps -4.7%. Hang Seng -2.6%

Selling opportunity had went out of the window... buying opportunity?

wah... so badly hit...

PUBLIC DIVIDEND SELECT FUND -5.29%
PUBLIC ISLAMIC ALPHA-40 GROWTH FUND -6.73%
PUBLIC ISLAMIC MIXED ASSET FUND -8.77%
PUBLIC ISLAMIC SECTOR SELECT FUND -11.60%
PUBLIC ITTIKAL SEQUEL FUND -8.67%
PUBLIC SELECT ALPHA-30 FUND -9.25%

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

OMG! Did I set off any alarms? Don't panic... above drops were due to distribution.

(To see the actual drop, look into the Performance Chart and put in these dates for the actual growth rate: 28/11 - 1/12. It should be updated either today or tomorrow.)



This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Dec 2 2014, 02:34 PM