Wal lau wehh you guys and gals...

Disconnected myself from the weekend and found not only that there's a new thread (V4) but there's already 7 pages of it!

Anyways, been reading the adventures of people trying to open up new ASW accounts yet I don't see many actually going to an ASNB branch but relying on agents; the latter which we all know has its own "issues".

Although ASNB branches are not everywhere, they're in major cities across the country. Those in Klang Valley have options in KL, Shah Alam and Putrajaya. The same could be said about the other states too.

From what I hear from my friends, ASNB branches tend to be more "supportive" as compared to agents. In terms of ease of doing transactions, many seem to rank the following:

1. ASNB branches
2. Post Malaysia
3. Maybank
4. RHB
5. CIMB

That's my 2 cents survey with friends of course

Fundamentally I personally cannot see this happening. None of what used to be normal macro-economic behaviors where gold vs oil vs USD are always either a direct or inverse correlation with each other has been destroyed and thrown out of the window no thanks to the US-FED QE plan to just print money.

Gold used to be what investors rush to in flight to safety whenever USD or crude oil goes down but if one is to chart the prices since the 2008 financial crisis, everything is just haywire. Add to that ETFs that take large chunks of gold-related transactions, the basic fundamental of gold demand is just out of sequence with what most people used to believe how gold should behave.

Apologies in advance if I confuse anyone

Looks like they're really pushing for people to go online. Unfortunately they need to rely on bank's online platform which is limited in terms of funds that can be invested.

We should really ask PNB to come up with their own online portal/website that isn't limited like what the bank's have.

I'm going to disagree on the above for 2 reasons:

1. ASB is an open ended fund as compared to other fixed price funds. Theoretically there's no way for ASB allocation can be filled up.

2. Per capita income among the major races in Malaysia does show that the Malays have the largest make up of population under the poverty line. Malays can never save as much say the Chinese can based on the statistics available.

It all really depends on how the US-Fed proceed with its tapering program. They have an important jobs-report data coming out later today which may signal the end of QE.

I believe BNM decided to maintain its OPR rate as inflation is still under control (somewhat) despite the recent fuel price hike and the current rates are "accommodative" to domestic consumption and businesses. Add to that the flight to safety of foreign funds back to US when the US-Fed bond buying tapering starts, I guess our "super-woman" Tan Sri Zeti and the committee believes that holding the rates steady would suffice for now.

I don't believe it has anything to do with UMNO's AGM, it's a non-event as far as macro-economics are concerned

She's highly rated by the world. Recently she was awarded the grade/rating of "A" which isn't the first time. I'm more worried about who would be her successor than UMNO's AGM hehehehhe

I certainly hope so. Brilliant ppl like here normally only comes once every generation. Finding a replacement as good would be tough

I've been reading the responses on the ASB2 thingy and I observe a rather interesting anomaly (I guess)...

Everyone seems to trust PNB when it comes to fixed priced funds yet the same is not extended to its variable priced products. Why is public mutual still the de facto for variable priced funds? Has anyone really studied if among PM's numerous funds (I think there's at least 50 if not more ) what's the % of returns is like?

The same organization, the same infrastructure, probably the same fund management or investment office operations and yet the respect for PNB's variable priced products is no where near the "trust" that people have for its fixed priced funds.

It's like believing that BMW's 5 series models do well compared to its 7 series model.

Just my weird observation...

Word of caution for Bumi investors as I'm sure there are many such "schemes" out there which to me is nothing more than MLM/scams. I saw this in the news a few days back but was out station and unable to post it.

Take note ladies and gents

I can't seem to help but see the blame being put on bumi's for not saving in ASB. I think people need to understand that a majority of bumi's are struggling economically just to put food on the table never mind save/invest.

Bumi's have the highest number of people living either at or below the prescribed poverty line in the ratio amongst the races. They also represent the majority of those with the lowest household income both in terms of median and mean scales.

When one struggles with rising inflation, depressed wages and high cost of living, even those living in big cities would struggle. And how about those living outside the big cities? When we're in their shoes, the priorities are different.

I'm sure that there are bumi's reading this thread and are feeling just as envious looking at non-bumi's having the opportunity to have funds to save/invest. They would have the same feeling too don't you think?

And also please stop repeating the same comment over and over again. ASB is an open ended fund and can never be fully taken up unlike the other funds. Even if each and every single Malaysian bumi maxed out their ASB accounts, the fund will still be available.

ASB is an open ended fund, it can never be fully subscribed even if cats grow horns

This post has been edited by hyelbaine: Sep 25 2013, 10:22 PM

Agreed. Mr PM announced that the fund is specifically designed for those who have maxed out their ASB investments.

What the event that someone's friend above got invited to is most probably the regional launch of the pengisytiharaan amanah and hibah amanah thingy that PNB is currently doing.

They organized one in Kota Kinabalu a few weeks back and did the same in Kuantan over the last weekend.

I believe so. I read in the newspapers that they'll be a series of launches according to zones on the products. It's about time they have it though, I read in the newspapers that there are billions of assets frozen due to unresolved inheritance claims...

That's normal lah mod, it's the main focus. It's hard to discuss when the dominant topic is fixed price and its variable priced funds are not getting much love.

PNB has bucket loads of other stuff that they do, I've seen their CSR work and programs to improve financial literacy (they just hosted CNBC's Suzy Ormon today) but as I have mentioned earlier, it gets drowned out.

So it really isn't a surprise that all the thread(s) including the previous one's is about fixed priced activities

At the moment it would be all pure speculation until details of the fund comes out. It depends on the classification of the fund (income or growth or balanced) and the benchmark that PNB uses (MGS or FD or tracking KLCI) before any comparisons can be done.

Personally, it would be very very very tough for PNB to get anywhere close to ASB's dividend policy and may find it tough to even beat AS1M's yields due to many factors. Average cost is just one of them. RM1 billion back in 2009 when AS1M was first launched would have bought far more shares of blue-chip stocks as compared to RM1 billion that ASB2 can in say 2014.

Also, the KLCI are at historic highs at the moment. Valuations of most KLCI stocks are already or almost full so ASB2 is already going into the market to build its portfolio on the high upside. AS1M had the opportunity cost (coming out of the 2008 financial crisis) so it would have had more value for money when it first started out.

ASB2 also is at a disadvantage (somewhat) due to the fact that there's not many large IPO's coming on board for which it could participate as a institutional or even as a major cornerstone investor. Since AS1M's launched in 2009, there have been huge IPO's such as IHH, FGH and the likes while ASB2 doesn't seem to have that benefit (for now at least) in the near future (they've just missed out on Westport's IPO).

Again the above are just my views as I'm not privy to what strategy that PNB's fund managers have up their sleeves. Until the actual details comes out, there's no point in losing sleep over ASB2. If one is bumi that one should focus on loading on ASB till its limits than moving on to AS1M while at the same time look for other options that may give you a higher yield as compared to PNB's low risk-medium return fixed price funds.

I don't envy them, it's a problem that I don't think anyone would want to have. Given the valuations of the equity market right now, it's going to take some hair-splitting brain-crunching headache-inducing pain to even come up with a competitive portfolio.

Having to live up to the expectations of its older "brother" is not easy. Personally, I wouldn't want to be the fund manager or investment officer in charge of ASB2 to be honest.

Personally what I find most irritating is, how our dear Mr. PM with just one speech over-ruled not only the SC but also BNM with complete disregard to what these 2 bodies are trying to put in place in terms of policies.

The next time someone whines about bumi's not investing in ASB, they should read the above.

However, I do wonder where does the author gets the figure from as it does seem to be rather low though.

What would be interesting to know is just how many of the 8 or so million ASB account holders have maxed their investment in it.

Anybody has a clue?

Hhhmmmm... So let's assume that those above 200k is about 50,000 people or about 3x the number of 500k and above, if all 50,000 invest RM200k than the 10b fund cap would have been filled in no time

As for those with 5k and below, it's really important to see if these are regular investors. If they aren't than including them (one off investors due to inheritance or something similar) than including these group of people would skew the data by quite a lot

Goodness, what ever gave you that impression that PNB's dividends are provided by the government? Or if PNB is like Petronas and has to provide direct funds to the government for its operational use that eats into dividends that's supposed to be given to the investors? PNB is not like other GLIC's like Khazanah or Ekuinas which uses the government money and invests which then returns profits back to the government. PNB is a GLIC that pool's money from investors and providing profits it obtains back to the investors in dividend.

PNB's funds are not guaranteed by the government or is it insured by institutions like PIDM, the same goes with other unit trust products in Malaysia. I would understand if you say it is quite a challenge to continue providing good dividends due to the sheer size of ASB itself or because PNB is only allowed to invest in local equities that yields are at a pinch but equating/assuming as you did it just boggles me. Even for PNB's funds that invest in government bonds or MGS, the returns on these structured products are fixed for as long as the government can honor payments at maturity. We may be in debt but it's nowhere near what the US govt is facing having to default entirely.

I'm sorry for the retort but it get's tiring having to repeat the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again.....

This post has been edited by hyelbaine: Oct 10 2013, 12:13 PM

True that. When measuring the spread between dividends (ex-bonus) and BLR, the average since 1990 till 2012 is 0.8%. It even went negative during the early 90's and of course during 1998 of course.

Again I've excluded bonus in the equation as it's not an absolute figure but taken over 120 months or 10 years. Food for thought for those thinking of taking ASB loans, don't fall for the "selling" tactic used by banks who always quote bonus as though it is absolute when it isn't.

For everyone's benefit (especially those silent readers who may be contemplating ASB loan due to the rumor that ASB loan tenure would be capped at 10 years) here's the image of the ASB dividend vs BLR spread. Again, don't fall for the bank's sweet talk.

The margin is smaller than you think