Yep you are right. It is generally advisable for the agent to go through the prospectus with the clients, as all the info can be found there. But in reality, how many people actually would like to read that thick book ?
Anyhow, an educated investor should be able to find out if the agent truly care about the person's interest or just the commission after just a meeting.

You're right. When we choose the unit trust, past performance should not be the main reference. We always say, good past performance not indicating anything, as we want good future performance.

In Msia, fund manager has no total right to choose stock to invest. There is committee having meeting and decide. So, who is the fund manager actually not very important.

When you choose the unit trust, must understand the investment strategies of the fund and look at the prospect of the market and sectors. This is more important. Also, you have to understand the risk level that you can bear with.

but would all agree that most UT sellers out there can't really relay those message?!...

The problem is most UT agents in Msia are not qualified financial planners. What can you expect ?

In USA, financial planners charge hundreds of USD for consultation fee and they are able to recommend any fund from any company.

Whereas in Msia, these agents get their wages solely from their commission only. And most UT companies here do not allow their employees to promote/sell other company funds (even others appear to be far more superior). The same goes with banking and many other industry actually.

So the bottom line is the investors should do some homework themselves, online research will do, my recommendation is not only the research from the particular UT company website, but also from independent rating agency like the lippers and S&P.

Im not too sure(I'm singapore PR) but u can send mail to dollarDEX.
Their service is very good.

Most UT agents are just sales people.. they have no ideas of their own, they follow a perscribe training sales pitch. Typical of Malaysian mentality, everything must be spoon fed. Ask them about the UT industry which is the best equity fund... answer = thiers. Which is the best performing fund last year ... answer = theirs.

So, cut a long story short. It works! Because in Malaysia, people want to INVEST and be known as INVESTORS.... they themselves do not do their homework and hoping that the agent does it for them. While the agent relies on his manager and company to feed them with information and they "relay" it back to their customers without additional advise or comments... sad...sad...

I know there are some agents like that...but not every UT agents like that.
There are 2 aspects UT agents can help you:

1. They settle all the procedure of buying, selling, switching of funds for you. You no need to go to bank or UT branch during your lunch time.

2. They can give you some advice and explanation on the funds that they are selling. They are trying to help investors to understand about UT better before they invest. Anyway, sometime, people expect company A agents praise about company B fund. This is no way for an agent. However, if based on past performance, agents should present the latest performance table to their clients even others companies fund outperform his/her company fund.

If your agent knows nothing about UT and the market surroundings, you can always change agents. I believe there are still many agents know well about UT and the market situation.

We're commenting on "most" not "every".
Obviously we all like to deal with agents that you mentioned, but how many does we come across statistically?

Yes, by changing agents meaning to say we need to withdraw the initial investment and re-invest via another agent; thus another initial service charged.

Not neccesarily means must sell n repurchase. Investors can also just submit an agent transfer form or write a letter to UT for that matter.

Yup, % wise not high to meet those good agent.

I am quite annoy on those agents telling people to sell their profitable fund (just because got profit sometimes a little bit few% not because market is high or whatsoever but rather to fund for buying newly launched fund.
A poor advice.

ohh....thats' a new thing to me. I never knew........kekekeke
thanks for sharing

Another stupid notion for debate from me.
Most of the time many UT companies will promote the new funds and most of the time when you look at it historically, you'll find that most new funds increased fantastically fast at initial stages.

I'm thinking whether or not it's because they're pushing the investment so hard, thus everyone is in the craze of purchasing and investing in it. The effect of this would obviously make the fund increased like mad.....do you think?! So that is my own reasoning why new funds are statistically performing much more better.

Someone correct me if my presumption is wrong.

New funds or higher volume purchasing fund does not means that it will perform. It does not have major effects.
Example: China Fund. Even 100% sold out but IF China markets suffers 6 months continous set back around 5-10%. I dont think that the fund performance will be encouraging coz the money will be invested in the stated markets or region. Share markets performance have direct effects on equity funds.

This post has been edited by shih: Jun 27 2007, 12:13 PM

but by injecting capitals into the fund (that's what we're doing by investing); indirectly we're influencing the equity market in China too....(quoting your example)

That still depends on how smart and how wise your fund manager is. Not all money will be invested into equity, maybe into bond, money market, properties?
If the money is being thrown into losing stocks, what do you expect? Injecting capital is one story and earning money is another.

Unless the fund is more than few ten of billions then might move/support the market a little bit otherwise with a few hundred millions won't have much effect on the market or minimal effect.
Market force is much larger than anything else, you can't fight the market alone even you have billions of fund.

Normally, local fund size including global fund most ranging a few hundred millions only.

New or old fund doesn't make any much different on the performance. It depends on their portfolio performance.

okie, thanks for proving my skepticism wrong...
hehe
at least I learn something new to me.......

This post has been edited by b00n: Jun 27 2007, 02:19 PM

it's because everybody is following the herd mentality - buy whatever is new, whatever is different - but the inflow of money creates problems for the fund manager too, meaning that they have to put the money to work immediately: and for equity funds, that may mean buying the shares at high prices which may backfire if market conditions take a turn for the worse

actually the 'stunning' performance of most funds currently is because of the bull market from August last year and nothing else: if you look at performance between 2001 till 2006, returns are averaging 8% per annum only; i shudder to think that if the global equity markets enter a bear phase lasting a few years tomorrow what the response of investors might be...

How to get this agent transfer form? If I agree, then I can change my current agent to any other agents, right? Any penalty?

The performance of UT is not depending on the volume. This is the difference between share and UT. When the demand of share is higher than supply, the share price will rise. For UT, the supply is fixed. Once the demand is same as supply limit, the fund will be closed and the price won't be affected by the volume. The only thing that affect the fund price is the portfolio of that fund. If the fund get profit from its investment, then the price will rise. That's why we look at the NAV.

My advice, if your agents can't explain clearly about what you want to know about UT before you invest, change to other agents. I still believe you can get an agent who can explain the thing to you with a right way.

It's the unitholder right to employ whoever to be his/her agent. Generally, the changing agent process requires 3 party consent - unitholder, ex-agent, new agent. The form can be obtained from the UT company office.
The ex-agent will lose career benefits for the sum, and the agent will gain it. There's no service charge occur on unitholder expense, perhaps some UT companies will charge admin expense on it. While the UT company doesnt gain anything, it explains why they dont recommend unitholders to switch agents without proper reasons.

This post has been edited by ejleemy: Jun 29 2007, 12:05 PM

Hey guys, I am new to this forum and hope there are some people who invested with PB funds.

I just invested in PB Euro Pacific Equity Fund, closing date was 28th June 2007. I have planned for the money to be there for about 2-3 years.

I will keep my posting here and update my activities on this fund here too. If you have any ideas/thoughts, please advice.

cheers
peterink