The asset allocation "concept" proposed by many is tied to age. It is to take away the investor's temperament... how the investor perceives himself, whether he can handle risk, how much risk he can take, etc.

The equity/bond ratio shows how much risk you, the investor, should take.

So, you don't try to see how you view or classify yourself into which investor category you belongs to... you should try to understand and follow the equity/bond ratio as suggested in your age group.

The only different I am saying here is that the money in EPF is also taken into account. Consider the money in EPF as part of your fixed income and bond funds when calculating the equity/bond ratio.

How conservative/aggressive you should be is also depended on the amount of money you are having. See the 4-box method in the previous post. There is a threshold minimal amount for 'survival'. The excess amount above this 'survival' level can be risked for higher returns.

Combine these 2 factors... your age group and how much you have and earning... you can figure out how much you should have in equity funds.

By knowing the appropriate equity/bond ratio that you should have, you are not setting yourself short by not taking enough risk.

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As for unusual market turbulence, maybe wait for things to settle down before continuing building the portfolio as previously planned.

Personally, I tried before to take advantage of market volatility to gain some extra money... sometimes lucky, sometimes not.

At the end, all alternate paths lead to the same destination.

Would you suggest cashing out while it's still not so much in the red to stem further losses? Or switch here, switch there like you said and sometimes lucky, sometimes not? Or just ignore it for now? Cos I really don't want for it go to -60% like you once did.

Alternatively you can consider periodically investing some cash into equity fund/s instead if lump sum investment. But would need some homework to carefully select the the fund/s.

Can we safely assume EPF return consistently beat 95% of unit trusts investment either during good or bad times?

try read compilation as in page 93, post 1843...

btw, your assumption will be based on "Historical data only"

I doubt you can make more mistakes than I did. I was in a rush to build up the portfolio to the desired amount, was issuing cheques in multiples of 10k, then switched out after tired of waiting for it to rebound and breakeven as the fund was down for years and years.

What I should have done was not to rush in building up the portfolio, and spread the purchases over years and years. Thus I would be purchasing funds throughout the down years.

So, review your financial objective of investing into unit trust funds. Was the objective short term or long term?

If short term, like planning for a wedding or down-payment for a house in next several years, were you expecting too much from the investment?

(Equity funds are more appropriate for long term investments. For short term objectives, it could be tough to achieve the objective in time and it could take much longer to reach the objective as planned, as there could be mini downturns in the markets causing delays while waiting for it to rebound. It would be better to lower the expected returns and invest into bond funds.)

If long term, like building up a retirement fund to complement and add onto the money in EPF, are you feeling you are running out of time and in a hurry to have a sizeable portfolio?

(For the long term, It would be better to spread out the investment and make purchases throughout the long investment period. Invest as you work, earn and save. This is easier than building up your savings while waiting for the right time to invest a big sum of money. Since it is a long term of many years, you could be repeating the latter method of timing the market many times, sometimes lucky, sometimes not. At the end, both methods may give similar returns. )

Then make adjustments as you deem fit and appropriate to your financial objective.

Hope your own review of your situation and investment objective will give answer to your question of whether to cut lost or not.

Thank you for such a thoughtful reply. Definitely words to sleep on.

It is for long term, but I also did invest a lump sum of multiples of 10ks at the end of 2017, which was just the high before the 2018 lows, and it didn't quite recover in 2019 because the fund is way underperforming its benchmark. Even without the recent sell-off I was already thinking that I should switch out, instead of wasting years and years for it to rebound.

Thank you. I'll come back and read your words again tomorrow.

small cap dropped a lot and i am lossing money. il should i withdraw all money out or just leave it there till covid19 issue over? Someonecpls advise me.

while waiting for value added responses, you may want to try this almost similar situation but from different fundhouse.
Should I hold it out?
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4921675

You will have to review your own portfolio as giving general comments can be too general.

Read the recent posts... they were on matching your age to the appropriate equity/bond ratio. The equity/bond ratio shows how much risk to take, ie. how much you should have in equities. It tells you whether you have over invested or whether you have taken enough risk accordingly to your age.

After reviewing the equity/bond ratio, you can take the appropriate measure, whether to reduce equity and adjust the ratio by switching some units from equities to bond/fixed income/money-market funds.

If you were having the right equity/bond ratio, the recent market sell-off would have distorted the ratio, you should adjust and rebalance the ratio by switching some units from bond/fixed income to equity.

All the above adjusting and rebalancing the equity/bond ratio is of course following your investment objective.

So, what was your investment objective in putting money/savings into unit trust funds? Is the investment objective short term or long term, and the funds you have bought and/or still buying match the objective?

Read the recent posts, and review your portfolio. If the portfolio was appropriately set-up to your investment objective, you should NOT be too concern with market sell-off and negative ROI… because we knew equity funds can be volatile at times and do not have continuous growth every day.

Don’t look too much into the current ROI, you should look forward instead to the final ROI that you expected to have when you set-up the investment.

If you have a portfolio that mismatches the investment objective, like too much higher risk equity fund to a short term objective of a few years, as the market trend can revert back to its past level 2/3 years ago in a market sell-off, then maybe you will need to revamp the portfolio and take up or write off the loss. Or you can hold a bit longer and hope that the fund can regain its position before revamping the portfolio.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Mar 18 2020, 02:04 PM

General market comments... by an uninformed UT investor.

Massive market sell-off in recent days is due to covid-19 pandemic around the globe. The drastic drop in oil prices to below $30 has an impact as well, especially to the local market. The leading company in the nation, Petronas would be hit hard. Ringgit is above 4.3 to the dollar.

What is worrying is that the pandemic is at different stages around the world. China has only one new case yesterday, while elsewhere, new cases are expected to increase exponentially.

The silver thread in the current market sell-off is that it is not an economic or financial crisis. Once it is over, the market will rebound and maybe rally back to its former level just as quick, forming a V-shape trend.

There are also opinions that the trend will not be a V-shape, and take a longer time to recover back to its previous level, which is also its peak level of all times. (This is referring to the U.S. market – the Dow Jones, S&P500, Nasdaq and Russell 2000.) Maybe up to 5 years, because the market increase in the past 1-2 years were distorted and over-bought and do not reflect the true value of the listed corporations. Covid-19 and the $30 oil price hasten the inevitable market correction.

Whether to have local equity funds or foreign equity funds in the portfolio?

Foreign funds of course. Because my portfolio consists of EPF too; and it is a much major portion of the portfolio as well. EPF is classified as both bond/fixed income and local equity in my port. It can be viewed as a balanced fund.

Thus the equity portion would be in foreign equities. This is to diversify from EPF and taking the risk to have better returns than EPF.

For the Asia region, the fund I selected is Public Islamic Asia Leaders Equity fund.
For U.S. market, it would be Public Islamic U.S. Equity fund and PB Global Technology & Healthcare fund.

I would suggest to make the purchases accordingly to your original strategy in building up the long term portfolio. If you abandon the original strategy, there is no strategy to speak of.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Mar 19 2020, 11:39 PM

Conclusion, i need to hold during this uncertain turbulence?

If you are still holding it this week, you should be able to hold it for another week. If you are still holding it next week, you should hold it longer.

At the end of the day, you didn't sell because you don't feel any pressure and panic to sell.

I think you should diversify the portfolio by having large cap funds too.

Check the portfolio next week, calculate how much the smallcap fund has lost from its peak, then spend this amount into Public Islamic Asia Leaders Equity fund.

When the market situation is relatively more stable in 2-3 months or earlier, switch the smallcap fund to PIALEF or Public Islamic U.S. Equity fund.

i asked the opinion from the banker (who sell me this fund), he told this dropping is temporary and advise to do top up when it reach min price so that i can sell it at average later.

Is this a good idea?

I forgot i hold the vietnam fund.. bleed until no eyes see lol

you holding alot? i already heartattack many times, everyday dropping....

How long does it take for the redemption proceeds to deposit into bank account if not mutual gold?

In my case, I submitted by redemption request online on 17/3 before 4pm. Until now, funds still not in yet.

Around 4 days last time I sold off.

Thanks for the reply.

Kind of disappointed over the speed of redemption processing.

Dear all, may I know can we switch our pm series fund to pb series fund?