One thing to note - most UT (Unit Trust) fund sucks, and regardless of their performance, you're ought to pay their fund management fees anyway.

There's a few fund that stands out and pass the test of time (past 5-6 years performance) slightly outperforming EPF consistently, but exposing yourself to way higher risk (also let's not forget EPF stood the real test of time since 1952. 5 years is nothing to shout about).
Whether the risk is acceptable or not depends on your current appetite and investment horizon. If you're approaching retirement, forget about unit trust, simply not worth it.

If you're young, maybe, but then consider the downsides as well (fees, performance, etc.) and one thing for sure if you do - buy and forget. Don't even think of trading "ACTIVELY" with unit trust like a stock - because it's not. Any investment vehicles containing basket of stocks (UT, ETFs, etc.) are best treated passively.

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Dec 6 2020, 10:30 PM

It's hard to "advise" as everyone have different circumstances. You have to assess based on your circumstances (age, $$ emergency fund, portfolio size, risk appetite ....) as you know yourselves better than anyone else here.

While I'm not expert nor a financial planner, from my experience, do you already have emergency fund built? If not, that 10k should go there (into FD or something liquid) before even any investments. Next is - do you have any high-interest debts?

If all bases are covered and its your first 10k to venture outside FD, IMO it's always better to start off passive approach with already-diversified portfolio via the likes of StashAway which invests in low-cost ETFs.
If you're willing to mix in a bit of learning of stocks picking then keep ~10-20% of it (or whatever % you can afford to lose) and venture into local/foreign stock market - but avoid this if you're really uncomfortable.
Some also started directly by 100% picking stocks in the stock market and it worked out for them (but of course you'll have to spend time understanding company fundamentals, reading financial reports, etc.)

In short, I don't think there's one-size-fit-all as everyone have different circumstances. I started off with UT too as that's what I was COMFORTABLE with for quite a while (too long, frankly speaking) and only recently added more stock pickings over time.
Just venture out based on your comfort level and increase it from there. Majority of my portfolio are still via passive funds (ETFs/StashAway) with some mixes of stock, because that's what I'm comfortable with at this point in time.

Do your researches, read alot - books, blogs, etc. but most importantly, think for yourself and always take others' advise with a pinch of salt (even mine). Do more research if you don't understand something and keep reading.

Ask yourself these questions:
- what is lacking in your entire portfolio (incl. personal investments vs. EPF's portfolio)?
- what regional exposure / geographical allocation / asset class works out for your total portfolio?
- which fund has stellar track record (though past performance is NEVER an indicative for future results), and well managed?
- can you afford the higher risk? EPF may not have the "best" performance but they always have a +2.5% mandated return and in some good years they've gave 6.5%++ returns. No unit trust will guarantee the downside and at times/years your fund may be giving you negative returns - can you stomach that and stay on course?

If after researching and you still can't shortlist a few good funds, probably it's best to leave it in EPF untouched

This post has been edited by polarzbearz: Dec 13 2020, 10:28 PM