Don't know, don't care.

All I know is that PM is a big organisation, and should operated like one with the CEO, board of directors, CFO, CIO and other CxO that I'm not aware of, setting the tone of the investment policy aside from the fund prospectus.

Yes, as it is the only small-cap fund in the PB series and if it suits your investment objective.

Please also note that we cannot switch to and fro from Public funds to PB funds. I would appreciate this new PB fund as I now have a small-cap to switch from PB Islamic Equity.

Still hang up on the SC? There's more in a long term investment than chasing low SC...

BTW you were replying to a spam post who was self advertising himself; who could get into trouble when rival UTCs snitched on him...

And no, it is not me who reported the post... I don't own this thread/forum and not its moderator.

Hmmm... a simple question, and a common one that deserves a long answer.

First of all, the funds I'm holding changes over time, and I don't think my portfolio is up to the task of being a good guide or benchmark to be followed.

Everyone here in this thread and forum is of different ages, financial means, objectives, needs and also different understanding on even the most common terms. For example, my understanding of 'diversified portfolio' might be different from yours, hence I may end up being muddle and confusing to you.

Broadly speaking, I don't believed that a 'diversified' portfolio is a must to all investors.

Foremost importance to every investor is the returns on his investment; so the number one objective is getting a fund that will:
a) gives the best/highest returns,
b) that will meets his expected gains for the amount of risk he is willing to take.

The amount of risk I'm willing to take, and my expected gains I'm seeking to have is most likely different from yours as we are all inviduals with differences, as stated above.

Once you understand what I'm trying to convey here, you should have the confidence to set out on your own path and determine what fund or funds to begin with, and how much to allocate in each fund; as you are best person to truly understand yourself on what are your expectations, objectives, amount of risk willing to take, etc. etc.

It is perfectly fine to have only one fund with 100% allocated to it, if it meets your expectations. Don't simply 'diversified' for the sake of having many funds, just because you have heard or read about "diversified portfoliio".

Cheers. Think first. Invest later.

Start Your Regular Investment Plan with Public Regular Savings Sequel Fund

• Distribution policy: Annual.
• Invests 70% to 98% in a diversified portfolio of stocks.
• Initial issue price of RM0.25 per unit during Offer Period (15 January to 4 February 2016).

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

Fund name: Public Regular Savings Sequel Fund
Category of Fund: Equity
Type of Fund: Capital growth
Launch date: 15 January 2016
Financial year end: 28 February

Fund objective: To achieve capital growth and provide income* over the medium to long-term period.

Investment strategy: PRSSQF seeks to meet its objective by investing 70% to 98% of its NAV in a diversified portfolio of blue chip stocks, index stocks, growth stocks and stocks that offer or have the potential to offer attractive dividend yields that are listed on Bursa Securities. The balance of the Fund’s NAV will be invested in fixed income securities and liquid assets which include money market instruments and deposits.

Benchmark: 90% FTSE Bursa Malaysia Top 100 Index (FBM 100); and 10% 3-Month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rate (KLIBOR).

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

Initial Offer Period Promotion (15 January 2016 to 4 February 2016):
Service charge: 5%
Direct Debit Instruction (DDI): promotional sales charge of 5.25% of NAV per unit for as long as the Direct Debit is active.
Terms and conditions apply.

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

Another new local fund in the Public series. Another fund with the same benchmark is Public Dividend Select, and its distribution policy is semi-annual.

There are other funds but with 100% FBM100 benchmark - Public Optimal Growth and Public Regular Savings.
Public Index and Public Sector Select have FBM100 benchmark too, but with incidental distribution policy.

Generally speaking, funds with incidental distribution policy are slight more aggresive than those with annual distribution policy, and with an investment eye towards growth.

If the investment strategy is a regular monthly purchase - DCA strategy, the DDI option can be considered.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jan 17 2016, 02:10 PM

hmmm, it was mentioned several times in this thread; anyway...

1. Using the performance chart.
http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx
Select the 3rd option in the chart, and fill in the start date and end date...
Please note it shows the actual growth performance of the fund, excluding the service charge.

(Service charge has an immediate impact on the net return of your purchases, and hence its ROI and growth. It should be 'amortized' gradually each year to lessen its impact; had also written about this in a previous post.)

2. Register and use PMO (Public Mutual Online).
This online service shows the number of units of your fund, the present NAV/unit price of the fund, the present value (in ringgit) of the fund, and some related info. From here, you can calculate the ROI...

3. Use a Excel spreadsheet, and track all the purchases.
This has been written extensively in a previous post too.

Cheers.

PS. Maybe will write about Excel function XIRR this weekend...

okay... 3 local funds are about to closed; PNREF (Natural Resources Equity) is a surprise.

Was poking within PMO, and found that one fund I had before is now closed - PB Asean Dividend.

I had a similar spreadsheet, but instead of ticks, the columns are with remarks such as, 'EPF', 'Closed', 'Open', 'Moderate', 'Local', 'Foreign', etc...

I keep track of the nav changes too, on daily basis because it is easy to copy and paste from the Fund Prices page. Then add them up into weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly changes; though this will be off a bit from the actual growth because of the daily additions to built up the total growth... but for doing comparisons btw funds, and knowing which are top performing funds at an instant, the figures are good enough.

Another tip is using 'conditional formatting' - color scales will shade the NAV percentage changes and rank the changes from bottom to top. Better than knowing the top 10 only as what is showing in the new PM homepage.

Back to Basics.

Understanding Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

Continuing from a previous post on keeping track of our UT funds using Excel...

Aside from the ROI and the Annualised Returns (which is also known as CAGR – Compound Annual Growth Rate), we could add into the spreadsheet the IRR (Internal Rate of Return).

The IRR shows the ‘average’ returns of the total investment. I’m using the word ‘average’ loosely, as it is not a mathematic average – where the sum is divided by a denominator.

Why IRR is needed?
In each purchase, we can easily calculate its returns or profit – which is the ROI, and also the CAGR. If there are 5 purchases (whether it is the same fund or 5 different funds, it does not matter), we will have 5 CAGRs. So what’s the CAGR of these 5 purchases?

In other words, we want to know the common CAGR of these 5 purchases, the annualised rate of return of the total investment in these 5 purchases – which is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR).

And we cannot simply total up the CAGRs and divide it by 5, as this will be completely inaccurate.

The calculation of the IRR is too complicated to fully explain in this post. You can read more of it here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/irr.asp

But in Excel, it has a very handy function (XIRR) to calculate the IRR. This XIRR function is a recursive function – meaning it goes around in a loop repeatedly until it comes to a figure that meets the 'set condition' before stopping & exiting the loop.

What is the ‘set condition’ in this case of finding the IRR?
This is the same CAGR, say X%, for all the 5 purchases; where if we plug in X% into the CAGR and calculating backwards to have a new ROI from each of the 5 purchases, the total of these 5 new ROI will be the same as the total of the original ROIs.

Get it?

Here’s an example to further clarify:
Purchased Date, Current Date, Purchase Cost, Current Value, ROI, CAGR
01/09/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,200.00 RM200.00 14.03%
01/10/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,500.00 RM1,600.00 RM100.00 5.06%
01/11/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,150.00 RM150.00 12.12%
01/12/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,500.00 RM1,550.00 RM50.00 2.92%
01/01/2015 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,100.00 RM100.00 9.46%

Total ROI = RM600.

(Please note the 5 different CAGR figures, which ranges from 2.92% to 14.03%.)

We can either manually calculate backwards on a trial & error basis to find the common CAGR or we can use the XIRR function... and we found out that the common CAGR or IRR is 8.10%.

Now, if we plug in 8.10% as the CAGR for all the 5 purchases , and calculate (backwards) to find their ROI, the figures would be as below:

Purchased Date, Current Date, Purchase Cost, Current Value, ROI, CAGR
01/09/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,114.32 RM114.32 8.10%
01/10/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,500.00 RM1,660.80 RM160.80 8.10%
01/11/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,099.90 RM99.90 8.10%
01/12/2014 21/01/2016 RM1,500.00 RM1,639.31 RM139.31 8.10%
01/01/2015 21/01/2016 RM1,000.00 RM1,085.67 RM85.67 8.10%

Total ROI = RM600.

Summary: The IRR is the effective rate of the total investment of several or more purchases. In the above example, when looking at the 5 different purchases as a whole investment, each ringgit invested is giving an effective rate of 8.10%.

Please note that the value of the purchase cost in the XIRR function is a negative figure.

01/09/2014 21/01/2016 -RM1,000.00 RM1,200.00
01/10/2014 21/01/2016 -RM1,500.00 RM1,600.00
01/11/2014 21/01/2016 -RM1,000.00 RM1,150.00
01/12/2014 21/01/2016 -RM1,500.00 RM1,550.00
01/01/2015 21/01/2016 -RM1,000.00 RM1,100.00

IRR = 8.10%

formula of the function: =XIRR(C1:D5,A1:B5,1%)

Where C1:D5 is purchase cost, and current value.
Where A1:B5 is the purchased dates, and the current dates.

The last figure in the formula, 1% is just a seed number to start the calculation... as it is a recursive function.

I know this is not a direct answer to your question; but I'm curious to konw what is the reason for it.

AFAIK, there is no help to an UT investor in knowing the historical prices.

a) UT is unlike gold, where the past prices could form a base whether the curent price is cheap or otherwise. UT prices is readjusted after each income distribution, and this will make any historical comparison difficult over a year or more.

b) A better gauge to use and ask would be how it had performed in the past; and the measurement is its growth. And the chart for the growth performance is easily available - http://www.publicmutual.com.my/application...formancenw.aspx

But take note that either historical prices or performance growth is in the past, while the investor is investing for the future, and can only use past history as a rough guide to try to predict how the fund would perform in future.

Edit: last sentence reworded.


This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jan 29 2016, 02:47 PM

I doubt anyone here can give you a reasonable answer as each investor has his own financial objective, and buys the appropriate fund to achieve that objective. And each fund is different from another in terms of risk and volatility, and a foreign fund has an additional risk over a local fund in currency risk.

(Yesterday's and today's strenthening of the ringgit against USD and other currencies have immediate impact on the nav prices. But how it will be in future or near future - who knows for sure... it will take either a brave or a fool to say this or that fund is the right fund that we should hold.)

In general, you will need to review the reason(s) why you had initiated on PNREF over other funds, or maybe it is one of many funds. Review why the investment was that way before, and decide whether to continue on or not by reviewing what circumstances have changed since then.

Personally, as I'm a consevative investor, I stay away from China funds and PNREF, and maybe Indonesia fund too.

The maybe in Indonesia fund was because the Indonesia fund has very high volatility and it is very persuasive to get it & out for some fast gains. Or fast lost if I got it wrong.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jan 29 2016, 02:36 PM

Bear in mind this is Public Mutual; usually the 'agent' or UTC is not a trained financial advisor; the UTC is more or less a sales agent... and he never holds our money. Our money is invested into UT funds and managed by the fund manager(s) who is charged of the UT. From day one, the money via cheque or otherwise was made out to Public Mutual...

Please do not be confused a UTC with a licensed financial advisor, who usually charges a percentage on the asset under management (AUM) annually. While the UTC earns his commission from the service charge on each purchase.

The AUM amount is separate fee from the initial service charge on each purchase of any UT fund, and the annual management and trustee fees incurred in the UT fund.

As often mentioned before, do not expect too much from any UTC by expecting extra services which the investor was reluctant and had never paid.

yup, markets rallying this week and more are getting interested in UT.

The Indonesia fund up 7.18% this month, lossing a mere -1.7% in Jan, while other foreign funds still struggling to recover their double digits losts last month.

No, still not having Indonesia fund in my portfolio... just stating a thought on the futility of chasing funds. Portfolio changed from 60% local equity / 40% MM in early Jan to 40% local equity/30%MM/30%bonds.

===========
Those sukuks and Infrastructure bonds on both Public and PB series are currently among the better bond funds (within the PM universe)... they are relatively newer funds than those closed funds with longer track records.

Yes, "forward pricing" means that the price (whether buying or selling) is only known at the end of each business day, and the price will only be published the next day. In other words, what we see today is yesterday's NAV price. (Some local funds will be updated sooner at about 7.00pm, hence you will see a mixture of 17/2 & 18/2 prices at the moment.)

If you want to either buy or sell, the cut-off time is 4.00pm via PMO (Public Mutual Online) or over the counter at the branches. If after 4.00pm the purchase/repurchase order will be the following day's price.

So if you place a repurchase order from now till 4.00pm tomorrow, it will be based on tomorrow's price (Friday) which will only be known on Monday. The order will be processed soonest possible on Monday, and the money release to you after several days, within 2 working days if you've gold status.

Noted there were 2 new notices in the PM website:

Notice of Unitholders' Meeting for Public Natural Resources Equity Fund
(15 February, 2016)

Notice of Unitholders' Meeting for Public Focus Select Fund
(15 February, 2016)

http://www.publicmutual.com.my/WhatsNew/An...ementsNews.aspx

Both funds seeking "to consider and, if thought fit, approve the proposed amendments and modifications relating to the Investment Objective, Investment Policy and Inveatment Strategy..."

The meetings will be at 9:30am and 2:30pm, respectively, on 29th Feb...

Would be interesting to know why the changes are necessary.

So EPF had recently released the dividend for 2015.

Here's the dividends for the past 10 years:
2006 5.15%
2007 5.80%
2008 4.50%
2009 5.65%
2010 5.80%
2011 6.00%
2012 6.15%
2013 6.35%
2014 6.75%
2015 6.40%

3-yr total returns 20.79%, annualised (CAGR) 6.50%
5-yr total returns 35.92%, annualised (CAGR) 6.33%
10-yr total returns 76.62%, annualised (CAGR) 5.85%

edited: Total returns (which should been compounded) and CAGR corrected.

---------------------

An UT investor's 2 cents opinion.

No risk, no reward; the higher the risk, the higher higher reward.

Young investors into UT, from age 25 to 45, should take on higher risk by having small-mid cap equity funds. So far in this thread, I had not touched on having a balanced and diversified portfolio (and hardly on balacing between categories of funds), especially if the investments were for the longer term and for retirement.

And the invested money was savings (from regular income), and a part of other savings such as money laid aside for unforseenable situations either in saving accounts or fixed deposits. And most of us are either in the EPF or pension schemes.

Hence there is already a sort of a 'balanced portfolio' if we pooled and viewed our money in UT, savings, FD and EPF entirely as a group of liquid asset.

If you are among the young investors who are just starting or still accumulating savings in UT, I don't think one should be too overly concern with 'balancing', 'diversification', or 'correlation' between funds. Just begin small - with some savings and do it on a regular monthly or quarterly basis. And go for the small-mid cap funds.

Cheers. Think first, then invest.

-----------------------

Alert.

When comparing funds to their benchmarks, please beware that some funds might be misusing its benchmark which is a misleading index, for example the fund invested heavily in small-cap equities and its benchmark is the KLCI index, which is the largest 30 companies in the bursa.

Higher risk, higer rewards. If the fund is having exceptionally higher returns in the mid teens and above, there is little doubt that it is a small-mid cap fund, and maybe even into the fledgling stocks too.

If you are among the older investors looking for a balanced porfolio of funds, maybe it is better to look into the past 10-yr returns too, than solely looking at the fund's indicative category or benchmark; or you might be having a higher risk and higher volatite portfolio than you might like to have.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Feb 28 2016, 06:36 PM

You are right. Above post & figures corrected.

I bet the agent-friend will show the performance of Smallcap fund with a 10-yr growth of 333.37% (as at 31/12/2015) to entice the prospect... and then said it is closed to new investment!

There are only 3 funds still open - PSSCF, PITGF and a new fund, Public Select Treasures Equity Fund.

Of the 3 options, I would select the newer fund to save the headache of checking which fund has the better track record. New fund, no track record, no need to check!

The Focus Select fund is having a unitholder's meeting today... recent performance seems to be going downhill when compared to other funds.

Regarding track records, we have to bear in mind that whatever happen in the past had past us, and past records is only an indication of how a fund would perform in future.

If the fund is compared to other funds in the same category, and it being the better or best fund among its peers, does not means that it will perform better in future...

If the older fund is closed and we are introduce to a newer fund, what we can reasonably expect is that the fund company will have a consistent investment policy and strategy, and will apply them to the newer fund.

For a 1st time investor into UT, I would suggest that we think about the objective (of the investment) first, then consider which fund company suits us, and lastly the UT fund.

Cheers. Think first, then invest.

PS. The investment objective must be clear... and it is not a mere thought of wanting the highest returns in the shortest time!

Would seriously suggest that you register for the online service - Public Mutual Online.

With PMO, you can check instantly whether if the fund is closed or not. When doing the online initial purchase, or additional purchase (and also switching) by cash, if the fund is still open, its name will appear on the selection list.

The only transaction that PMO can't do is when it is a purchase and withdrawal from EPF.

A fund can be closed to any of the above mentioned 3 transactions - initial purchase, additional purchase or EPF. It may be closed to cash purchase, but open to EPF.

It may also be closed to inital purchase but open to additional purchases - but only if the additonal purchases was placed via DDI (Direct Debit Instruction) before it was closed.

Regarding PRSF, it is closed. (Sorry to make you read a wall of words before giving the bad news. )

It's replacement fund would be the recently launched Public Regular Savings Sequel Fund.

PDSF is classified as an income fund - more stable compare to PRSF, while PRSF is more towards "growth". A better fund in the same category as PRSF is Public Optimal Growth Fund.

No difference in the sales charge; they are the same.

But note that there will be 2 different accounts (ie. 2 acct numbers for the same fund). So the implication would be later if there is any switching to be done - 2 switching transactions instead of one. But if there is intention to have more than one fund...

Public Optimal Growth Fund.
Public Ittikal Fund. (Please check, as it might be closed.)

Currently, it is a bunny market - it is hopping up and down; and bond funds like Infrastructure and Sukuk is doing better than the equity funds. I think (my unfounded layman opinion) it will continue for the rest of this year - and had converted most of my money-market funds to bond funds.

Take note that the EPF status on the funds will change to 'cash' on the 55th birthday, and opens the door to non-EPF approved funds. At the same time, it will also closed the door to certain funds that is only open to units with "EPF status" - for example Ittikal Fund.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Apr 18 2016, 02:05 PM

Hi,
Time to bs another long post... prefer to bs in this thread so that can review back what were my bs thoughts at this point in time.

==========
Question: I have xxx fund... should I top up?

Answer: What is the main worry - the fund or current market status? If it is concerning the fund, then do a review by comparing its performance in the past 3 years against its benchmark, and also against other funds of the same category.

If the worry and hesitation to top up is about the current market status, then you should proceed with the top up!

Simple reason: no one can safely predict how the market will be in the next several weeks or months; so the hesitation is just emotions at play and nothing to do with any planned investment method and objective.

Lastly, the words “top up” means that you are still in the beginning stage of accumulating units... so should carry on with the regular buys to reach the financial target as planned.

==========

Question: My xxx fund is at -X% currently. How much should I top up next week?

Answer: Depending on whether you are using DCA or VA... if DCA, then it is the same fixed amount each time. If VA (value averaging), should top up to the predetermined amount that was set at each date.

(See the post dated 19-5-2015 for further explanation on DCA and VA. Post was just updated to include the effect of adding inflation into VA.)

==========

Question: My xxx fund is at xxx% lost. Should I sell it?

Answer: What was your financial objective in purchasing xxx fund? If it was a one-time-purchase because of speculation that this xxx fund will ‘perform’ in a short period of several weeks/months, I wish you better luck next time.

And next time, look into the entry costs too... going in and out will cost you a lot of service charges in the long run.

Check out other fund companies or investment platforms that have lower service charges – anyway, it will still adds up... Even if we used a less costlier option of switching to other funds such as money-market or bond funds, the switching fees will add up to a tidy amount in the long run.

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

Question: I am new to UT. What should I do?

Answer: Read all my previous posts in this thread!