Up, down, up, down... and steadily on a downward trend... as amplified in the Jakarta index.

Read somewhere that the level to wait is 5400... it is currently at 5760... another 6% to drop.

In the meantime, am slowing moving into ASEAN funds.... since my port is too heavy in Greater China and Far East.

Switching is usually possible within the same fund house – as long as the fund that is switching into is also EPF approved.

From one fund house to another, this could be considered as a withdrawal or sell, and then making a new purchase in the other fund house – which is not possible since any withdrawal will transfer the money back to Account 1.

You will have to get more details from FSM, as I don’t have the hands on personal experience in these matters.

Looking at the whole portfolio is viewing your money as a whole investment. Since we are talking about a batch of money to withdraw out of EPF, then it is more efficient to view it separately and view them as different batches of money.

You could also look at the whole picture from another perspective. See your money in EPF as a conservative UT fund, and take this conservative fund into account and view it together with the other UT funds.

Lastly, EPF is the biggest player in the local stock market. The odds of beating them gets higher, in the long run, is by not playing against them in the same field. By having a non-local fund, you are also diversifying and hedging your bets.

==========

PS. A local small mid cap fund could be in the category of an aggressive fund and in the short list of funds to select. To be on the short list, the fund – IMHO – has to have a past record of returning at least 9%.

To add on the above... the account that is created using money from EPF is not a nominee account. The usual cash investment with FSM is a nominee account.

Hence, if one is purchasing the same fund using EPF withdrawal - whether via FSM or otherwise, it will be on a separate account... in order to keep track of the invested money... since any withdrawal out of the UT fund, it will transfer the money back to Account 1.

Can't recommend any, as the fund I'm having is not within FSM.

You could look into ASEAN funds using Morningstar and short list the top 5 or 10 funds, base on their returns in the past 5-years, before judging whether any of the funds fit your expectation and meet any requirement you have in balancing and diversifying your portfolio.

Yes and no. Can be either way.

Since it can be either yes or no.... the safe option is to break the "buy" into as many times as possible... like maybe breaking it into 100 "buys" and spreading it over 100 months.

By doing it this way, you can concentrate on your one bestest fund and don't have to worry on the timing or the fund. And the question on getting the best possible value and return for your invested money is more or less settled.

(Don't be swayed by opinions that one must diversify into a number of funds. One bestest fund is more than enough! Serioius... not pulling your leg.)

The bestest fund is a fund you can trust, a fund that you can continue buying in good times, and in bad times; a fund that you can continue to buy this month, next month, and the next 100 months.

Not many can be a bestest fund. It is not the flavor of the month, nor a fund that gives the highest return in the past several months or the last several years.

More often than not, the bestest fund would be closed to new investments as it will fully subscribed before you can get enough of it. When this happens, look for another bestest fund.

When the targeted amount is built and achieved, then it is time to preserve the wealth, by having a diverse and balanced portfolio to generate a passive income.

Already dumped large cap fund while it's still positive... small-mid cap too late to escape...

The sell-off could be horrible and the rebound nowhere in sight... take a deep breath and hope for the best.

It is good timing if you had just walked several steps of a long journey... keep the pace.

I don't use this excel template... so can't say where it went wrong. But here's a clarification on how they are calculated...

Invested cost = RM 28,215.00
Total units bought = 45,464.07

Units sold = 4,335.74
Invested cost in the 4,335.74 units sold = 4,335.74 / 45,464.07 x RM 28,215.00 = RM 2,690.76

After the 2nd transaction:
Balance units = 45,464.07 - 4,335.74 = 41,128.33
New Invested cost = RM 28,215.00 - RM 2,690.76 = RM 25,524.24

Note: With the balance units and current NAV price, the current value can be calculated. And the current value together with the "new" invested cost, the ROI or total returns will match the returns given in any charts or reported returns on the fund in percentage.

========

In the 2nd transaction, the units were sold at a lost... bought at 0.6206, sold at 0.6204.
Profit = RM 2,689.89 - RM 2,690.76 = (0.87)

Current Profit of remaining units of 41,128.33, @ 0.6205 = 25,520.13 - 25,524.24 = (4.11) or -0.02%.

(IRR = -0.13%.)

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 30 2018, 07:04 AM

What was your initial objective when building the portfolio? To chase near term performance and growth or to have a balanced portfolio for steady long term growth?

If it is the 2nd reason, you might have to review whether the intention to restructure the portfolio is to chase performance.

Generally, the funds to top up are those with negative ROI, meaning that they had dipped since the previous purchases.

And these funds we had selected were based on solid reasons to hold and can be trusted. Unless of course you had picked them randomly, and are now abandoning them.

"Buy low sell high." "Every dip is a buying opportunity."

You could try Morningstar to see what global funds are available and suitable to your needs.

Also note that it is a global market and all regional markets tend to react in tandem to each other, not easy to have two uncorrelated equity funds… unless the particular country is relatively isolated from other markets, eg. New Zealand.

Also you wouldn’t consider any equity funds that are completely uncorrelated – which is moving in equally opposite direction to each other as this means a net result of not moving at all! So anyhow, there would be some correlations in play.

If you were concern about the short term negative impact on the portfolio due to the current market trend, and the current negative ROI is more than you expected, another perspective to consider is the risk level of the port. Reduce the risk level not by having another equity fund, but by increasing the portion in the bond/fixed income funds instead.

Or switch out of an equity fund to another equity fund, either in the same market region or another region, having lesser volatility and more conservative growth. More probability that it will be a large cap fund instead of a mid cap fund.

Read the prospectus of the fund, and consider those “titan” funds which invest in corporations that are above US$10 billion in value.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: May 30 2018, 09:18 PM

EPF's Q1 portfolio:
equities 41.59%...
50.53% in fixed income instruments...
EPF’s overseas investments, which accounted for 27.30% of its total investment asset...

Positive gains in Q1...

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...e-of-rm12pt88b/

Yes, in a way it is good news since EPF is covering the lost incurred in the UT portfolio.

In Q1, in comparison to EPF, the UT port was about 70% in foreign equities, about 10% in local equities, and the rest in mm funds.

Unfortunately, the local equity was all in small caps and incur heavy lost. Fortunately, its portion is small; so overall, it contributed about -1.5% to the port. The foreign equity contributed another 1% loss.

In the past 2 months, it gained 0.5%, so reducing the YTD lost to 2%.

Did some switches, tiny moves each month, and currently total equity is about 85%. Would continue to increase it to 90-95% by Nov.

If this year's performance is flat and not negative, it will be considered a "win".

The worse already happened... the bigger question on which fund to bet is on its potential upside.

Small-mid cap funds might rebound a few percentages, maybe up to 5 or 6%.
Big cap funds that benchmark on KLCI index... might be flat... CIMB Research cuts end-2018 KLCI target to 1,767.

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...target-to-1767/

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 4 2018, 01:29 PM

Don't you wish you had top up more last Wednesday?

Since then, and including another "green" day today, my port's YTD lost of 2% is completely erased.

Hope uptrend will continue a few more days before the holidays next week.

Mr Trump, please don't cancel your trip to Singapore.

Only if your investment objective is short and near term... when you not only take the profit off the table, but take everything off the table.

The mini rally that began on 31st May already fizzled out last Friday. For most funds, the peak was in January... thus in many investors' portfolios, there was hardly any profits to trim.

Why do you want to do that?

The current funds you have bought and selected are for their expected growth. Negative correlation means the fund would go in the opposite direction to the funds you are holding. It means the fund is a bad fund, or the fund is moving in a different cycle.

It would be better (and easier to find) to have a fund that has a slightly above zero correction - fixed income and bond funds, if you think your port is too volatile, and its daily drop is too much stress to have peace of mind.

Which means don't buy too much equity funds... but usually we are kiasu and greedy for growth in market uptrend, and were then caught in a downtrend, and now feeling scared and kiasi.

DCA is too often under appreciated. It is often askew to be a stastitical means of lowering the average cost of buying, when it is actually a way to keep the investor to keep on buying and investing bit by bit over a long period for long term growth.

===========

If you take some time and think what above implies... yes, the "bestest" fund theory... find a fund that has the best growth potential and keep buying it.

A balanced and diversified port is a matured port and a destination. It is NOT necessary to begin building a nest egg with a balanced port.

Some percentages loss in an invested amount of several thousands or tens of thousands is insignificant to a targeted nest egg of half a million or so.

In other words, the invested amount is only 5% or 20%... still got another 80% or so to go and continue the purchases.

I think yesterday's market selloff would knocked off another 1 or 2%?

My port of 74% in foreign equity, 13% in local equity, and 13% in money-market lost 1.9% due to yesterday selloff. Lost 2% last week, gained 2% in the 1st week of June... just to show that the market is indeed volatile.

6 BILLION is not that BIG when the total investments is more than 600 billion... less than 1%. Did they say anything about the gains made in the 1st quarter, and the gains from the approx 50% of the investments in fixed income securities?

Before asking anyone input and opinion, how did your own opinion came about? So you believed some bond funds will outperform EPF? Have you estimated by how much the bond fund will gain over EPF? 2%, 3%, 5% or more?

And when the market is less volatie and more stable, and when your think that EPF is giving better returns... will you move the money back to EPF or not?

Lastly is it worth the effort (since timing the market takes some effort to get the timing right) to switch some money out of EPF - if you take into consideration the potential gains in terms of percentage?

Let's say the bond fund will outperform EPF by 5%, and the "some money out of EPF" is about 10% of the total money in your EPF and also your current UT portfolio. So the total contribution to your total "EPF & UT" portfolio is 5% x 10% = 0.5%.

Which leads us to ask:
Will this difference of 0.5% be noticeable when the market is volative and in a market selloff, the portfolio can drop up to 2% in a day?

Can we get the timing right, and pull out the bond fund when it hit the 5% outperformance, if indeed it can hit this 5% outperformance?

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

My 2 cents... it is easier to stick the original objective of getting into this "UT investment" and continue any tactic, strategy or plan or whatever... than begin pressured to react and adjust anything due to market trends.

The better method, if not the best, is using a bit of common sense.

If don't know how to time the market, then don't time the market. Spread out the purchase over the entire investment period, purchase bit by bit, 1% at a time....

As Warren Buffett would say, buy equities. Not bonds, not reits... stocks.

Instead of dabbling directly in the stock market, buy equity fund.

The pros and cons of equity fund is well discussed in this forum.

Yes, we are talking about unit trust or mutual funds.

In the longer term and in the chase for growth, and especially since this thread seems to be populated by youngsters who are just beginning to save and build up their wealth, equity funds are much more preferred than bond funds.

And there is a need to know what purpose it would serves the investor to hold bond funds (as you had explained).

There is not much reasons to divert money out of EPF into bond funds. (Mind you, this diversion from EPF is not necessary age 50 or 55 or 60 withdrawal, but within the EPF withdrawal scheme into unit trust funds.)

When it is within the EPF-UT withdrawal scheme, it is better to take on more risk and aim to outperform EPF by having an equty fund.

This post has been edited by j.passing.by: Jun 21 2018, 04:21 PM