People like to quote a point in time a lot.. "stocks dropped today" like it will matter in ten or twenty years' time what happened today.

People like to think they have some measure of control over how things turn out, don't they? to me "using whatever means at your disposal to obtain the optimal ROI within shortest time" is called gambling that's exactly what gambling is, people trying to achieve a high ROI in the short term. I'm guilty of that, chasing profit I'm trying to find a way to stop it. It's very misleading, you're pretty much just wasting time and probably making things worse.

Fund A may get 50%, and fund B may get 5%.. but we don't know for sure, so we pretend to know by saying this will happen because A and because B.. but in the end we still don't know nothing has changed even after all this time we wasted. It makes us feel that we are more in control, that we know something. In the end if we still get 5%.. we can say we tried or something.

But your post has given me some insight, some people invest to feel some sort of achievement. It's like they feel they have done something, when they analyze and make guesses and predictions. We look at the short term and we curve fit, find reasons for it. We jump from one fund to another, chasing profit and ignoring losses. People want to be right more than they want to make money.

What is this need to feel that we are right, that we know the future or can tell the future by looking at the past or the present? We all know that if we are well-diversified and keep investing, we'll do well in the long term.

But why is that so hard to do? we always want to play with it, to chase the next big thing. We can't determine whether the funds we invest in will net us 5% or 50%, so why do we try? why don't we just diversify and keep investing and sit quietly for ten years? who doesn't have ten years? I think everyone has ten years. Why should it matter so much whether we have 5% ROI or 50% ROI? we are all kiasu...

Why should we even decide? I mean look at FSM's portfolio, they rarely touch the thing. And they are doing OK. The danger with playing with it is that the numbers lie. If you keep cutting your losses, it will look like you are making more profit but then you don't realize your capital is shrinking.

The problem even with active management within peers is that you end up paying 2% a lot, because peers are pretty much always in different fund houses why not just dump it in a global fund and be done with it?

I've a good mind to just follow FSM's portfolio.. and be done with it. Is all this "using whatever means at your disposal to obtain the optimal ROI within shortest time" effective or worth the effort, or is it just providing you with a false sense of security and control, while losing you money in the long term?

But how do you know that?



Try to forecast the weather. Try to make it rain, or stop raining. People forecast sunny weather but they still carry umbrellas.



So why are we not following the advice of the people we are paying?



But if gold were to make another new high in the next ten years she would have not lost money, and in fact made a bigger lot.. and how would anyone know if it won't? what if she kept a little in gold, a little in others.. so if that happened, she would have not lost the capital?

If you lose money, you shift, you lose money, you shift.. eventually you will run out of money right? because every investment has downturns.

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 23 2016, 11:56 AM

Actually we have 0% and 1% sometimes.

Eh the way you reply makes it hard to quote. Try breaking the post up and sticking blocks at the beginning and end of each. Or you can use the quote button.

Yes what she is doing is active management. I'm wondering if it's worth the time or even worse. Forecasting the weather is a bit of a waste of time isn't it? it rains when it rains it's hot when it's hot making decisions based on "information" is just like making decisions based on the weather forecast

I don't see anything below..

Indeed, that pretty much demonstrates it.. I was talking about service charge you think you know but you don't.. then you act based on what you think you know, with pretty disastrous consequences

We see what we want to see.. when we read, sometimes we interpret that, in the way we want, even if it's not what the writer meant. And then we make decisions based on what we misinterpret.. that seems to happen a lot with people. Which is why I'm wondering why we don't just diversify and wait, that pretty much solves the problem of making a bad decision based on misinterpreting what someone else has written.

Yea he is good, but if we don't know if we are good, are we better off just diversifying and not thinking too much, as opposed to reading and misinterpreting and blowing up stuff?

I have this bad habit of thinking I can forecast the future based on the past, or what someone says or does. I don't really know if I really know or just think I know. But I know every time I switch I lose time and money. Is that worth it in the long run?

Don't you think the TA guy is a bit anti-US lol..


He wrote this to explain a 1.1% gain...



But he wrote this to explain a 3.5% gain...



I don't know.. I probably shouldn't be doing what I'm doing now..

As if no one could have just bought an iPad lol.

#1 is dangerous because it's money that makes money, more money makes more money. If say you are in a fund that has lost 50% and you switch, you have to make double what the old fund will make in the future just be say you are in a better position. For instance if you are in fund A and it is down 50℅. Then you switch and say at the end of the year your new fund has made 8℅ and your old fund 6℅. You think you made the right decision but you didn't, because 6℅ of 100℅ is more than 8℅ of 50℅.

It just looks as if you did. So you are eroding capital, but all the time you think you are doing better.

Or you can follow FSMs portfolios.

Oops.

LOL.. time to prep. End of world coming

But no one knows the future...

Your port looks like mine now

During a recession everything loses money.. where are you going to switch out to

PRS is a bit weird.. they only have one fund and you can't take it out until you retire, and they charge you every year? might as well put it in EPF, it is free.

There's a management fee right?

If you make enough to actually be charged that amount that is

The best time is as soon as you can

NOTE : Would you believe this post got reported? some people are just being weird now

Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose, to open an account and not buy anything? you'll still be charged the Rm10 account opening fee

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 25 2016, 10:08 PM

If we are talking major downturn times, 1998 was one. Also Sept 2001, when the towers were hit. If you look at pretty much all the other UTs around that time, you will see that they all dropped pretty much at the same time.

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 27 2016, 04:06 PM

You're right, didn't see the typo, it should be 2001. Wow that was 15 years ago.

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 26 2016, 03:47 AM

Very liquid, you are guaranteed a buyer. Usually by the next Monday or Tuesday.

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 26 2016, 03:49 AM

There are two funds that are US-specific and a few others that invest in the US as part of the portfolio. No one can say which funds are better because no one can tell the future

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 26 2016, 03:52 AM

Obviously if you sell you need a buyer the fund house guarantees to buy any units you sell. This is the stock market, at least it's a stock market by proxy - instead of buying shares yourself, you give money to a fund house and they buy shares on your behalf. In other words, they do the stock picking for you, and you pay them for it.

See in the stock market, there's a multiplier effect attached to money. More money makes more money. There are many stocks in many countries I would buy if I had the money, but this is inefficient because retail trading in overseas markets is troublesome and inefficient. Min commission for NYSE from a local broker is close to Rm130 minimum now with the current exchange rate. This is inefficient if you are only going to invest, say, Rm1000 in the US, commissions would be more than 10% of your investment

Now if you gave your Rm1000 to a fund manager, and another million people did the same.. he'd have a pool of a million dollars. He is in a much better position now to trade, the commissions become a negligible part of the total capital invested. Obviously he wants to make a profit as well, so he charges a percentage. It's not free but cheaper that if you did it yourself. This is called a mutual fund. If you buy into a fund, you are buying into the stock market for whatever countries or sectors the fund specializes in.

If you want to exit the fund, or sell some units, the fund manager will buy it and pay you the current value of the fund for it. You don't have to do it yourself. This does not mean there are no buyers, this only means that the fund manager is what we call a market maker.. he buys anything you wish to sell, at the current price.

Retail players (in the stock market) can choose to buy or not to buy. This sometimes causes liquidity issues if no one wants to buy what you want to sell. This does not happen in mutual funds because the fund manager is obliged to buy any units you sell. Because of this, there are no liquidity issues in mutual funds.

It takes the whole week because.. well I don't know, stock exchanges have always taken days and days to conclude transactions, I guess governments are inefficient like that it's not the fund's fault though, they have to sell your units on the stock market, and the exchange makes them wait that long. Especially for overseas funds, it goes from fund manager to broker to overseas broker to foreign stock exchange, then the money comes back the same way.. takes a while.

This post has been edited by wodenus: Dec 26 2016, 06:51 AM

You have the wrong definition - liquid means it is easy to find a buyer, and the process of selling is painless. Real estate, for instance, is illiquid. It is not easy to sell, and the process of selling is complicated. So is art. Gold bars are more liquid than art, there are many goldsmiths and few art dealers.

Go ask them tomorrow? they have live chat and email.

You don't have to have an account with them to email them or use the live chat. They will answer you even if you don't have an account.

Rebalancing now, just completed next year's portfolio