Actually, no. Just one of the many funds who are look-alikes on the chart.

Try the following 3 on the same chart for various time-periods, and see what I mean:

- CIMB-P GTF
- RHB - GS US
- OSK - US FOCUS

There are others like these. They probably share many things, like feeding into the same management funds eventually, or maybe they happen to subscribe to the same investment advice newsletters from the same gurus, or something like that

Try something different - add Eastspring Small-Cap to the chart and see the contrast.

If one were to look at the performance of this fund since the beginning in the 10-year chart, it has made a grand total of 2.94% since the beginning of Jan-2008.

FD would have been much better off.

If you want to time the market, this and other China funds could be good candidates. Given the recent surge, now would be a good time to sell.

I am sharing that China funds have big ups and big downs, and the net result so far is worse than FD.

Ai yo, you are addressing the wrong point.

I'm was not giving excuses, or background reasons why, or when the funds were launched, or whether OSK did a good job or not.

I was stating a fact that in simple comparison, that particular fund was worse than FD, and that's simple accounting, or in fact simple arithmetic. As a accountant, you really need to learn to distinguish between basic statement of facts and other side issues.

And don't forget the Fund manager(s) of that Fund house is a really important factor too.

You are not judging the market directly, but dependent on what the manager decides, which may not be what you think.

Weekly payments doesn't buy you anything.

Unlike loan repayments where the more and sooner you can pay off, the lesser your interest and hence overall payments.

What people don't tell you about regular investments is it slows your gains when the market is going up, and slows your loses when the market is going down.

Over the longer term, if the fund you choose is going downhill, you will still end up going downhill.

It's just that you would have a smoother downhill curve.

I was in a presentation by a fund manager not long ago.

In his slides, he showed the distributions per quarter which looked really attractive for the whole year.

I was about to hold my hand up to ask whether that's just distributions, or it it real ROI?

He must have guessed what I was about to ask when he mumbled something about yes, yes, left-pocket, right-pocket, etc.

I didn't bother asking then, and focused on consuming the free dinner instead.

This post has been edited by howszat: Mar 28 2014, 09:51 PM

May I suggest that this point be replaced by a far bigger problem, which is the misunderstanding (or mis-representation?) of what UT distributions actually mean?

Hidden charges are not a problem because you only see what returns you get after fees have been deducted with UT. Hidden charges happens when returns are advertised before fees are deducted.

The point is correct but not relevant. Because you can't look at charges in isolation, ie 1 dimension only.

Look at the returns you get in hand, the NET return after all the fees/charges. You don't need to worry about what they actually deduct, you just look at what you get in hand, after all the deductions. That is THE relevant thing.

To use a simple example:

Fund A
Gross return: 20%
Charges: 10%
Net return: 10%

Fund B
Gross return: 3%
Charges: 0.1%
Net return: 2.9%

A. Fund A gives better returns.
B. Fund B has lower charges.

Why one would you pick and why?

Note: This is simply a question of charges vs returns. "RISK" will add a 3rd dimension but we need to get past the 2nd dimension first.