Further comments:
The total growths in the above post looks fastastic; with at least 50% more than EPF's 74.3%. But when annualised, the figures look normal and within the expected rate of any UT and investments which comes with added risk.

10-yr total growth, and annualised rates:
130.60% 8.71%
144.37% 9.35%
185.04% 11.04%
144.81% 9.37%
144.47% 9.35%
179.35% 10.82%
180.33% 10.86%

The extra 3-5% each year makes the big difference in the long term.

Without any data or funds or benchmarks to refer to and to compare against, it is tough to comment on the performance of the funds or on any particular fund manager.

In general, the investment policy of Public Mutual is pretty consistent; it is not known to be aggresive but more conservative and moderate in nature; not aiming to be the top leading fund among all the funds available in the market in their respective sector, but within the top bracket.

When I last looked into their invested equities, they were mostly about 0.5% in any one equity, with the rare 2% as the highest holding; compared to another more aggresive fund (from another fund company) with up to 5% in a single equity.

The perception of poorer performance could also be due to recent weakness in the local equity market; but we can't fault the fund manager of not giving better returns in a market down trend.

Anyway, below are more numbers; maybe they could give a clearer picture whether the perception of weaker performance is true or not. The 1st number is the total growth as shown previously, followed by the growth rate in each year from 2005 to 2014.

Pleae note KLCI is added for comparison, and it is not the benchmark for all the 7 funds.

KLCI 94.09%, -0.84% 21.83% 31.82% -39.33% 45.17% 19.34% 0.78% 10.34% 10.54% -5.66%
Public Industry 130.60%, 3.26% 31.87% 42.52% -41.45% 43.09% 9.94% 3.31% 11.71% 14.63% -2.48%
Public Index 144.37%, 6.89% 25.20% 35.76% -39.36% 47.48% 21.09% 2.09% 9.15% 15.58% -3.56%
Public Regular Savings 185.04%, 5.30% 24.45% 34.55% -33.73% 46.61% 24.34% 5.01% 10.47% 16.75% -1.18%
Public Islamic Equity 144.81%, -0.07% 24.67% 42.26% -34.79% 33.84% 17.53% 4.13% 15.26% 11.94% 0.09%
Public Ittikal 144.47%, 4.47% 25.48% 38.57% -35.67% 37.31% 14.10% -0.78% 12.68% 13.02% 5.67%
Public Focus Select 179.35%, 3.72% 30.59% 29.62% -32.89% 42.66% 26.16% 5.17% 17.52% 6.65% -0.07%
PB Growth 180.33%, 3.92% 32.37% 59.31% -36.82% 45.67% 13.85% -1.74% 7.97% 15.92% -0.75%

Cheers.

Edit: Any figures if wrong are typos made by me, as the figures were compiled by me; not a copy-and-paste job from any official site.


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Oct 12 2015, 11:31 AM

- several months is too short a time to expect much difference between funds; any bond funds would do.
- depending on what's the reason behind the transaction, it might be better to have a money-market fund instead.
- Bond funds have service charge of 1%; money-market fund nil. But the 1% is "rebated" when the bond fund is latter switched to an equity fund.

Hi,
Another rainy day story...

Readers who were following this forum would maybe recall that I started an EPF portfolio 3 years ago; as a shiok run to check some facts and opinions.

So far so good, IRR is about 3.6%. (ROI 11.4%) Yeah, it is less than previous years EPF returns of above 6%; but we have to take into account the service charge that it was already negative 3% on the first day, and any UT investments, IMHO, should not be less than 5 years.

The longer the better, and as for me, it is “forever”.

Lessons learned:
- Always do regular DCA. I only withdrawn from EPF in the first 15 months; no fresh investments after that. If I have done the purchases more consistently, and more regularly, the returns and IRR would be higher.

- I had withdrawn too much at one go; or rather I took too long to switch to equities which I did over a period of 18 months, and then sell the remaining units in the bond fund after 2 years. Meaning I have been holding money in the bond fund far too long; thus wasting time and time means money, so was wasting both time and money.

After selling the remaining units in the bond fund, I changed the investment strategy; swinging to and fro from equity to MM.

Currently, it is about 75% in equity, YTD gains 6%. If I switch all to MM (which gives about 3.4% p.a.) now, it will be about 6.8% for the year.

Should I do it switching all to MM tomorrow or be greedy and wait till KLCI hits 1750? But when the target is achieved and the greed is there, the targeted mark will be re-set higher and higher... LOL

PS. Don't swing unless you have free swings. Each swing cost money and can easlily burn a hole in your pocket.

I think you missed the reply in previous post #334:
- several months is too short a time to expect much difference between funds; any bond funds would do.
- depending on what's the reason behind the transaction, it might be better to have a money-market fund instead.
- Bond funds have service charge of 1%; money-market fund nil. But the 1% is "rebated" when the bond fund is latter switched to an equity fund.


The bond funds which are EPF-approved are quite similar and there would not be much differentiation in the short time of several months. There are only 5 or 6 of them.

All the bond funds experienced a sharp drop in August. The 2 funds that dropped the least are Select Bond Fund and
Public Strategic Bond.

Public Islamic Money Market.

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

Below are some of sites frequently visited for more info:
- for fund performance: see this chart. It is handy.
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx

- for fund prices, see this link. Select the "Fund Group" to narrow down the list.
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application.../fundprice.aspx

- for all UTs under EPF scheme: see the official EPF site.
http://www.kwsp.gov.my/portal/en/web/kwsp/...vestment-scheme

- the Morningstar Malaysia site is good for more details and rankings of any UTs in the Malaysian market. http://my.morningstar.com/ap/main/default.aspx

- bookmarked the links for future reference.

Cheers.

PCSF

- fanstastic returns in recent years.
- 1-yr returns from 20-Oct-14 To 20-Oct-15=37.37%
- 3-yr returns from 22-Oct-12 To 20-Oct-15=67.13% or 18.67% p.a.

- since launched: total returns from 25-Jun-07 To 20-Oct-15=06.82%.
- NAV price on 20-Oct-15: 0.2507
- actual ROI = 0.0007/0.25 = 0.28%

- why the discrepancy between 6.82% and 0.28%? Service charge then was 6.5%.
- okay la, buying during launching period got discount of 0.5%.

P.S. Sold off mine 3 yrs ago before it went up. Now truly understood the difference between "fund's returns" and "investor's returns".

No surprises, like clockwork, income distribution is announced, on the last business day of the month for those funds reaching their financial year-end.

- Public Mutual Declares Distributions of RM252 Million for 9 Funds (30 October, 2015)
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/LinkClick.a...jtg%3d&tabid=96

Comment:
Distribution for P. Islamic Bond fund is 6 sen per unit. It is a consistent income fund with about 6% distribution no matter how good or bad its annual growth performance was. Good to have this type of fund for the older investor who are withdrawing the distribution as part of his/her retirement income. Too bad it is closed to new investors.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Oct 30 2015, 06:09 PM

This info used to be updated - years ago - in the website in the 'annoucement/news' section.

Currently, the only way to verify the info is by logging into their online service... if the fund is available for selection, then it is still open; if not, it is closed.

"We would like to inform you that Public Mutual Online (PMO) website will be under system maintenance from 8:00PM until 10:00PM on 8 December 2015 and access to the system will not be available during that period."

PMO okay now, but fund prices yet to be updated today... major failure or is today a holiday in KL?

LOL. Fund prices just updated after posting above.... at 4.00pm - about 4 hours later than usual.

1. See Morningstar - http://my.morningstar.com/ap/quicktake/ret...tab=TotalReturn
PSTBF -
3 Years Annualised, 3.36%. Rank 15 of 37 funds in same category.

2. Bond funds can go down just like equity funds. Good example is the NAV price the past several days.
9/12/2015 PUBLIC STRATEGIC BOND FUND PSTBF 1.0638 -0.0005 -0.05%
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application.../fundprice.aspx

3. See the performance chart - http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx

4. See their ranking as in (1). Never, ever bother with the NAV price, how 'cheap' or 'pricey' it is do not matter. The only thing that counts is its performance growth.

You have the wrong idea what is expected of a UTC when you allow the UTC full discretion on how and when to buy any UT on your behalf. The service charge is just a small fee on highlighting to you what is the most appropriate fund that would serve your requirement, and will not commensurate the UTC to offer his time and services to any further advice like a full fledged financial advisor, who will charge some percentage on the total invested amount annually. And do not mistake this AUM fee (Asset under Management) with the annual trustee and management UT fee.

It is not wise of a UTC to do anything further for free, but get the blame and trouble with things go sour.

In some of my previous posts in this thread, most of the basics of UT, and the 3 different age groups were highlighted; do give them a read...

Bond funds may not be right for the younger investor who has a long investment objective like saving for retirement. Too conservative when he can take more risk...

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The PB series has only several local equity funds; PB Growth, PB Growth Sequel, and PB Islamic Equity. You may looked up the Performance chart and compare their performances for the past several years and rank them, but bear in mind that the better fund this year might not continue to be the better fund next year. Anyhow, I presonally prefer PB Islamic. (YTD returns of 6.34% vs benchmark -0.52%)

Time flies, and only 2 more days to another year.

Some random thoughts:
- 2015 not too bad, portfolio gains about 9%.
- KLCI really window dressing these several days, could push the YTD to nearly 10%, hopefully.
- DOW and S&P: where's the santa rally?

- What's in 2016? Same old, same old... if still in beginning stage, keep accumulating UTs since the investment is not for next year, but the future 20-30 years.

If in the mid transition stage, maybe take bolder steps to improve the IRR with some decisive timing. Good luck!

2015 – How was it?

This year not a bad year for UTs, with extraordinary growth in the foreign funds, with YTD gains ranging from 8% to 18% – all thanks to the steep ringgit drop. The drop in ringgit also made the balance funds performing exceptionally well.

Even the Australia Equity fund gained 6.2% for the year when the S&P 200 index declined 2%; from 5411 at 31 Dec 2014, and closed at 5295 today. Other indices like Hang Seng and STI were performing just as poorly as the KLCI and S&P 200.



On the domestic front, the best performing funds were the small cap funds. Public Islamic Opportunities Fund leading the pack with 18.3%. At the rear end was Public Islamic Dividend Fund with 3.5%.

Overall, most of the funds were in positive growth for the year, with several laggards in negative territory.



With the mixed bag of funds from negative growth to positively high growth, how well the portfolio was doing in the past year depends on holding the right funds.

Fortunately for me, my main portfolio hit 10%, while the 2nd portfolio of EPF-approved funds (started several years ago) gained 7.7%.

The main portfolio made the gains by swinging into equities during the dip in early Sept. The 2nd portfolio was pulled out of equities before KLCI went down after May, and did not ride the dip.

And more importantly, managed to pick up 2 good EPF funds in the dip - PB Islamic Equity Fund and Public Ittikal Sequel Fund. Both portfolios were in equities in the 4th quarter.

(The best gains were from the Australia fund, going up 2.77% on Tuesday, and another 1% yesterday.)

What’s the strategy for the next 12 months? Maybe will stick to “Sell in May and go away”, and maybe have more balanced funds – which were renamed to ‘tactical allocation’ funds.

Cheers. Keep investing. Happy holidays!

Another round of market selloff... all following the selloff this morning in Wallstreet. And wallstreet was selling due to data from China, and Shanghai closed market after just after opening for 29 minutes...

How should you react if holding China funds like China Select? It lost 2.18% on Monday, -0.29% on Tuesday, and gained 0.17% Wednesday. How much would it lose today?

But before you react, take a note that it gained 17% in 2015. And also the reason why you were buying into this fund.

If you are among the young investors accumulating equity funds for the longer term, maybe continue on with the accumulation, whether via DCA or VA method.

If you are among the more senior investors with a balanced portfolio of money-market funds, bond funds, some conservative dividend and income funds, and some high risk agressive funds, maybe do nothing as the portfolio was set-up to expect turmoils in the market.

If you are among the 'restless' investors who are neither here nor there, maybe do what you think you should do. Hopefully, there was an investment strategy in place. If so, don't panik and abandon the strategy...

Cheers. Have confidence and follow your own advice.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jan 7 2016, 01:42 PM

Does it really matters whether I'm holding China funds or not when it is a global selloff?

As you know, I'm among the 'restless' investors.

Make a stand and take a position whether the selloff will continue, whether this month and this quarter will end up even more badly with greater than 10% or 20% down or will the selloff end tomorrow and will rebound next week.

And then take your bet.

If I take a position, then no trimming profits or cut lost by such and such percentage of the funds or "top-up". No point trimming by 5%, and leaving 95% expose to a potential 20% drop. I will take it completely off the table.

FYI, I chopped 2 funds before 4pm, they were about 25% of the overall value of the portfolios. (My free quota of switches was just replenished this week! I can swing back in anytime without costs.)

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

Portfolio now:
Foreign funds: 0%
Local funds: about 40%
Local small-cap funds: about 20%
Money-market: 40%

Some of the local funds, I have to hold because one of them, a small-cap fund, is closed, and some have PA insurance. And all them in positive CAGR... and contributing positively to the overall IRR. Will only chop those that do not add higher value to the IRR.

They are the usual popular funds; Ittikal, Ittikal Sequel, PB Islamic Equity, and newly added PB Balanced.
Small cap PIOF (which was closed in Sept 2014); and recently launched small & mid cap Select Treasures.

In the plan: switch more into Select Treasures by another 10-25%, and cautiously increase equity back to 85-100%. But this might not happen, and maybe even lower total equity to 20%-40%... all depending on which direction the wind blows.

(The total switched values in the main portfolio broke the 1 mill mark this week. )

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- Invests 70% to 98% in equities, with focus on small-cap stocks.
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===============

Name of Fund: PB SmallCap Growth Fund
Category of Fund: Equity
Type of Fund: Capital growth
Distribution Policy: Incidental
Launch Date: 13 Jan 2016.
Financial Year End: 30 September

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Investment Strategy:
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Benchmark:
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Note: The risk profile of the Fund is not the same as the risk profile of the benchmark.

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

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