Come to think about it, the 80 formula is too conservative. If age 20, equities is 60%. And by age 30, 50/50?

50/50 by age 45 or even age 50 looks better, since we have EPF...

The bond funds here in PM can be lower than EPF dividends... no point having too much bond funds.

True, but it is not time to get in when KLCI is at 1715... Am not having any local funds; if I do, I would seriously consider off loading some before 5/5 election; sell some when it is high - and it is all time record breaking high at the moment.

Malaysia's economy is not isolated; if global economy dips, it will follow suit. The silver lining is that it will rebound back faster since the regional fundamentals are more solid than Europe and USA. The European crisis is not out of the woods yet, with over 25% of youths unemployed in certain countries... most likely things will flare up again in the summer heat.

I have been waiting for a chance to get into local funds... should have jump in in January, but was wrongly thinking that the election would be in March, so waited and waited for the market to dip... well, it will dip sooner or later.

In the meantime, am holding 50/50 ratio... so all is good.

Was holding up to 75% in equities, just pull back some... so I was "sell before May, and go away".

At first glance, the question seemed tedious to answer, but there is a simple answer.

How is an agent "good"? It can be answered by knowing what is your expectation of the agent and how 'good' you are as an investor.


I think it is an advance notice to their agents, and not for public consumption yet. The would be changes seemed to be on increased charges on the low load units, currently sold at 0.25% service fee. There's no changes in the switching fees since the new 1% load units yet to be launched.

For us old investors, the change would be w.e.f. 1st Oct, where low load units switched to loaded units will be charged the usual 5.5% less the 0.25% or 1% already incurred.

It is Public Mutual way of indirectly telling us that it is not worth to have low load units. Should slowly convert all low load units to loaded units... collect gold points, aim for gold member status, get free switches worth RM450 every year. Or get out.

"Sell in May, and go away"

Just took some profits off the table before 4pm & off loaded another 25% of the portfolio to money market/sukuk funds. All foreign/Asean funds. Scared market will continue dipping tomorrow while we're in holiday for the long weekend.

Now very heavy in money market/sukuks (75%)... will slowly get back into equities, maybe 2 months later from August onwards.

2013 still looking good. So far, already gained above 7%.

Happy holidays!


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

Local Horses.

Managed to catch a local horse (islamic dividend) yesterday. Switched from PSEAF. A small bet - only 5%. The sole local horse in the stable.

Not that it is running faster and ahead of others, just a hunch that the horses will lose direction and run off track soon, but this particular horse will not stray too far and will get back on track faster than others.

Let's hope I made the right bet.

I only have south-east asia funds (PSEASF and PBADF). I could be having it (PINDOSF) latter in the year; I read some comment that there could be a brief pullback in Indonesia and it could drop as much as 12%.

With yesterday Nikkei's sudden drop of 7% after it opened in positive territory, I'm more inclined to believe anything could happen.

Stock markets 1-year and year-to-date gains (from today's bloomberg):
KLCI 18.67% 6.38%
STI 25.77% 8.71%
ASX 30.60% 9.59%
JCI 32.72% 20.67%
SET 47.32% 17.58%
HSI 25.74% 0.96%

The 1-year figures are moving, and could varies much if it hits some deep troughs or peaks. It was as high as 50% for Indonesia and Thailand.

The YTD figures are accumulations for the year. KLCI is still way behind JCI and SET.

2 ways for KLCI to catch up - run faster or other horses run slower. Or maybe KLCI will never catch-up. Who knows?

"islamic dividend" still not clear enough. PIDF - Public Islamic Dividend Fund.

The other small-cap horses were all running too fast to catch - already missed the opportunity; and all these small-cap horses already gained more than what they did last year.


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

Foreign horses.

Don't forget there's currency risk in betting on foreign horses.

If ringgit goes from RM3.05 to RM2.96, it is a 3% gain. Which means a sudden lost of 3% in the NAV price when the value of the foreign horse is converted to ringgit NAV.

This happened on Monday immediately after GE13. Thankfully, it never occurs too often, and the ringgit is moving slowly back above 3.00. But it does remind me of the risk in not having any local horses in the stable at all.


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


P.S. PIDF is not a small-cap fund. It is heavy on blue chips. From its 2012 Oct report, it has some reits, and some small percentage in Taiwan and Singapore; hence the reason its NAV price is updated next day unlike the 100% local funds which are updated at about 7.30pm. Syariah compliant - so no Genting, Berjaya Sports, Carsberg or Guinness; if you want these stocks, go for PDSF (Public Dividend Select Fund).

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 24 2013, 02:19 PM

wow, what a month! Local horses all running better than the foreign ones; with five horses going over 10%. The top horse was PIOF at 12.3%.

(The fives are Public Islamic Opportunities Fund, Public Islamic Treasures Growth Fund, Public Strategic Smallcap Fund, Public Smallcap Fund & Public Islamic Select Treasures Fund.)

One of the past favorite, the Australian equity, went under at 11.3%; nearly wiping out its past gains. YTD is +1.8%.

Far-east property also went down 3.4% in the red.

Did not get out fast enough on this horse at the top end; missed by just one day and got hit by a sudden 3% drop; otherwise my switches would be over 10% gains each.

Indonesia Select came back strong in May; gaining a respectable 3.4% versus a 0.7% drop in April. Still the top horse at at 19.8% Y-T-D.

end of report. Happy punting!

How I wish I have inside info!

(BTW, the gains/lost percentages given were simple compilations of daily price movements; so there are rounding errors and is not same as you would see in the Fund Performance chart in public mutual website.

For example, the 30/04/13 to 31/05/13 dates in the chart would be -10.78; while my accumulated figure for the month is -11.3%.)

Why it went down? Australia is down under.

Seriously, 2 reasons - its stock market (S&P/ASX 200) and AUD$.

S&P/ASX 200 at:
30/04/13 = 5191
31/05/13 = 4930
Difference = -5.03%

AUD$ to ringgit:
30/04/13 = 3.1415
31/05/13 = 2.9791
Difference = -5.17%

Foreign fund = Country risk + Currency risk.

Sometimes you only need to understand the horses. A good horse (that outperform its benchmark) will usually comes out top in the long run.

For the short run, bet only when the going is good; when there is a clear indicator like when a faster moving average is cutting a slower moving average from below.

To have winners, remember the reason why you bet - short run or long run. If the reason is forgotten, we will tend to pull out at the wrong time, either too soon or too late.

"I'm just wondering if there's anything that we can use about this fund as a defensive way of staying away from buying anything from that agent?"

The plain truth is that Public Mutual has the highest service charge, 5.5%. You would usually need to invest and hold for at least 2 years to cover this charge. If you're lucky! Many more years, if not.

In the mean time, you're losing opportunity cost, that is the lost of interest if your money was put into a no risk investment vehicle like fixed deposit in a bank.

The 2nd fact is that a lot of the agents are fresh and hangat-hangat tahi ayam. They don't last long. They can't. Mutual funds are very long term savings for retirement or to finance your child's education. And these are at least 15-20 years plans. In the course of your 20-years saving plan, agents will come and go.

And this is especially bad since each investment with a different agent will have a different account number, even if in a same fund. When it is time to switch from one fund to another in the latter years, you cannot consolidate these different accounts into one and you will incur extra switches and more transaction costs.

Agents tend to appear out of the woodwork when the stock market is hot. It is the worst time to enter. In actual fact, it is time to take some profits off the table when there are lots of newbies getting in, and a reason why I'm monitoring these forums.

If the agent is really determine, and there are some benefits you see in Public Mutual and you want to get in; please do it conservatively using the dollar cost average method.

The best way without telling a lie that you are already a Public Mutual investor, is by signing up on your own.

Go to a Public Bank and open an account. Make an initial investment buying into a bond fund, and you need only have about RM1000 to open an account.

Bond funds has a service charge of only 0.25%. A bond fund will usually gives a return better than fixed deposit.

Then applied for the Mutual Online account. If you have a Public Bank savings account, you then can transfer, without extra transaction fees. into the bond fund regularly on your own. It is better and more convenient than placing multiple fixed deposits. And re-investments is as low as RM100, which you can't do with fixed deposits.

The only flaw in this method of placing savings in bond funds instead of fixed deposit is that Public Mutual will be going to increase the service charge to 1% w.e.f. October 1st.

But this service charge will be offset and deducted when you switch from a bond fund to an equity fund. Still a good method if you intend to invest into equity funds eventually.

Why Mutual Online? There is a current promotion of 0.5% DISCOUNT (so low, nothing to shout about). And you can invest into both Public and PB series of funds. Direct transfer from savings account. At your own convenient, without paperwork with an agent. Option to select "No Agent" when buying a fund, and hence no multiple agents with multiple accounts on the same fund.

Cheers.


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 9 2013, 11:34 AM

"No agent" in the online option still pays the same service charge. The 0.5% discount is a current promotion.

That's the normal service charge for cash (money out of your wallet) investments. Money out from EPF (which you can withdraw every 3 months, based on some formulas on your total amount in your EPF account 1) is 3.0% in EPF-approved equity funds.

Service charge for investments from both out-of-wallet or out-of-EPF in bond funds is the same 0.25% (which is going to be 1.0% in Oct 1st.)

I have yet to have a good reason why the discrepancy between 5.5% and 3.0% in the service charge in out-of-wallet and out-of-EPF investments, except that maybe EPF has enough clout not to approve investment schemes that charges a higher percentage.

This is despite the fact that you can do out-of-wallet investments online without any aid from any agent, once you have registered an online account after an initial investment.

(You need to do some paperwork. Basically some papers that you admit that you know what you are doing, that nobody is twisting your arm to invest. There is a cooling-off period. For new investors only! No cooling period for re-investment. )

You can't do out-of-EPF investments online. Each withdrawal from EPF needs to hand in a form with thumbprints on it to EPF. Yeah, more work for the agent, but lower service charge? See the irrationality?

Cheers.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 10 2013, 03:10 PM

Not really. It shows the performance/increment of the fund over that period of 1 year. Can't just look at the NAV price over the years, since each annual distribution gives more units.

The NAV price will drop after each distribution. Total value remains the same.

Total value = number of units x NAV price.

So after distribution, more units and slightly lower NAV price.

Yes, amazing returns recently. If we look into its performance for 5 years, it was 2.75& per annum.

What do you like to know? Can write a book on this subject. And it would be repetitive of what you can find in Public Mutual website.

Steep losses in some funds in the past week, mostly foreign funds. Indonesia Select has dropped a staggering 8.78% so far this month, and today's stock market (Jakarta) is down another 2% as I write.

The regional SEA funds, are also down but not as steep as Indonesia Select. I was holding 4 of them, public property (-1.08%) and PB real estate (-2.40%), public SEA (-4.21%) and PB Asean (-4.07%). (I bet both sides of the fence ).

Was lucky to switch out all of them except for the last 2 batches that yet to pass the 90 days mark. So these last batches of SEA and Asean lost all the recent winnings and then some. I think I'll hold them, as I'm running out of free switches.

As mentioned, I have just started to go into local funds. Started with PIDF. So far so good. Then added Focus Select, and it is the only fund of all the local funds in the red. Bet on the wrong horse. Should have taken another fund which I have in mind too, Islamic Select Enterprises.

Also doing good is PB Mixed Asset Conservative. Switched from PB real estate. PBMAC was chosen as I'm too heavy in bond/money market funds, and to hedge my bets that it will perform better than bonds/money market, and yet not drop too much if the local market goes negative too.

Cheers.

PS. Am keeping an eye on the funds in Singapore too. Will get back into equities when the time is right.

JCI 32.72% 20.67%
SET 47.32% 17.58%


Today's figures:
JCI YTD 6.69%
SET YTD 4.97%
KLCI YTD 6.59% (KLCI still holding its ground.)

Above was what I wrote nearly 3 weeks ago. Is the correction happening now? Time to enter?

What do I know about market valuation? I'm a layman with "buy low sell high" mantra and betting on the fastest horse!

Will it drop further or today's the last chance to enter?

Thank you for the quotes. You are indeed kind and helpful.

I switched into 3 of them earlier this month and last week.
PISEF was positive till yesterday.
PFSF dipped the most, nearly 5% loss.
PIDF dropped nearly 2%.

P.S. It is not an indicative of their past performance, only to show the loses due to time of entry. Guess the 2-3% difference will be immaterial in the final outcome when they all climb (or drop) 10 to 20%.

Select the quotes, before clicking "More Options" in the reply section.

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

Not sure whether I got this right, it was a quick comment on CNBC.

Types of market dips:
Pullback - 5% to 10%
Correction - 10% to 20%
Bear - 20% to 30%

When will the market turn around? There's many opinions, so a solution is hedging the bets.

Place about 20% to 25% of your available betting money when the market dipped more than 7%, more than 15% and more than 25%.

Then lastly if the market still goes down, throw in the sink and stove?

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 25 2013, 01:10 PM

Salute!

No perfect runs yet, still betting on some duds among the winners. Still have much to learn, and only able to mitigate this month's slide as best as I could.

Runs record so far this year:
Monthly Increment/Decrement; YTD.
Jan 2013 1.97% 1.97%
Feb 2013 2.32% 4.34%
Mar 2013 1.69% 6.10%
Apr 2013 0.97% 7.13%
May 2013 0.10% 7.23%
Jun 2013 -2.42% 4.64%

I think these last 3 days of June will provide a bit of boost to the negative percentage; since I incline to think that the fund managers will do some window dressing for the 2nd qtr. / half-year reports.

Cheers.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 26 2013, 04:38 PM

List of moderate (as rated by Public Mutual) and epf-approved funds.
Past 3-yr performance:
Public Islamic Dividend Fund 46.32%
Public Dividend Select Fund 45.09%
Public Regular Savings Fund 44.98%
Public Index Fund 37.11%
Public Ittikal Fund 33.88%
Public Growth Fund 26.89%
Public Savings Fund 24.55^

Public Industry Fund (closed) 34.99%
Public Balanced Fund (closed) 8.72%

--------------------------

PSF is an old fund, nearly 30-years old.

Easy to sell and be convinced and pulled into UT investment when shown its past performance chart since inception with its impressive 900% plus growth!

Cheers.

For a first fund, would suggest a "moderate-to-aggressive" classified fund. See the given list in the previous page. Public Mutual is good on moderate, local funds for the long term; especially now that the stock market is quite volatile and KLCI at above 1770 points.

Also if the withdrawal is in excess of 10k, an option is to go into a bond fund and then switch partially over several months to an equity fund. Find the recent post on this option for more details...

Cheers.

Regional (SEA) and China market all pushing up today. Only KLCI is behind, only one with less than 1% jump. Is it the beginning of a long rally?

Let's hope July will end positively... am still holding more than 20% in SEA/Asean funds.

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

Public China Access Equity Fund.

After some bashing (okay, a lot ) of the China loser funds, is this their cavalry fund to the rescue?

This fund is a piggy-back fund, only open to other China funds. It has the license to invest directly in the China market ie. Shanghai & Shenzhen, which are normally opened to domestic investors only. Funds usually invest indirectly into China via Hong Kong thru companies listed on the H-Shares (Hang Seng China Enterprises Index).

It started in April. Only time will tell whether it could improve the performances of the China funds...

(Very tempting to jump into China Titans fund... not China Select, got burned badly with this fund and still feeling resentful! )

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jul 11 2013, 08:02 PM