[Vanguard eating popcorn and watching the new member getting grilled]

Talk about getting a warm reception.

No boss here. Kuli only.

Anyway all in the good spirits of a public forum to share information and gain knowledge.

Nah, he didn't laid this morning.

Cari makan only in the stock market. But I am still maintaining my FSM portfolio, sis.

My FSM portfolio on autopilot only...But I am doing RSP every month. I trust your FSM portfolio is doing well.

P/S: I made some money from the share market. Time to reduce my exposure after GE. What goes up must come down.

This thread is becoming so interesting. We have sifus, Yoda, trolls, charlatans, one hit wonder, etc.

Can the real McCoy please stand up? 😃

Your assumption is incorrect. There are a few investors here who are 40+ and who have been investing in unit trusts for 10 years or more. They just don't advertise themselves. Some of the sifus like Pink Spider and Sifu Wong are unfortunately not active in this thread anymore.

I have no funds tipsy to give. It is already well covered by the FSM team and the senior forumers here.

Deleted. Wrong thread...

This post has been edited by Vanguard 2015: Aug 1 2017, 12:33 PM

Welcome back!

Yes, I am still holding RHB Emerging Markets Bond Fund in one of my portfolios.

This is an extract of an article from Tong of Absolutely Stocks.

Balanced funds: not so balanced

Actively managed funds have been getting the thumbs down from nearly all quarters.

Investors have certainly made their stance known, taking money out of active funds (especially those with comparatively high expense ratios/fees) and piling into passive/index-linked funds including exchange-traded funds (ETF). Globally, ETF with their very low fees has grown exponentially – from just US$807 billion in 2007 to US$4.1 trillion today.

This week, I’ve decided to take a closer look at the performances of some of the biggest actively managed funds myself. To substantiate claims of their underperformance relative to the market, the reason why investors are flocking to passive investing. The results are quite convincing.

In Singapore, 3 of the 13 largest balanced funds (that is, they invest in both equity and bonds) underperformed both the comparable equity and bond ETFs in the past 3 years – Capital Group EM, Schroder Asian Income and Franklin Income.

None outperformed both the equity and bond ETFs.

Their annualised returns range from -3.2% to 4.3%. The average return (in US dollar terms) is 1.5% p.a. for the last 3 years.

3 of the 13 suffered absolute losses – JPM Global Income, Capital Group EM and Franklin Income. Only 2 made an annualised absolute gain in excess of 3% p.a.

And these returns are before upfront sales charges.

In Malaysia, 4 of the 13 largest funds fared worse than both comparable equity and bond ETFs over the last 3 years. They are RHB Asian Income, Affin Hwang Select SGD Income, Public Islamic Mixed Asset and RHB Kidsave Trust.

Only 5 of the 13 managed to beat both the comparable equity or bond ETFs.

Their annualised returns range from -0.4% to 11.4%. The average return (in ringgit terms) is 4.7% p.a.

One of the 13 suffered an absolute loss while only 5 made absolute gains in excess of 5%. The latter includes RHB Asian Income, Affin Hwang Select Income, Affin Hwang Select AUD Income, Affin Hwang Select SGD Income and CIMB Islamic Balanced.

Fees always matter. Clearly, the less a fund charges to cover expenses, the more of its returns are left over for fund holders. As both tables show, the total expense ratio for all the 26 funds – average of about 1.6% – far exceeds that for equity and bond ETFs.

To put all these numbers into perspective, assuming the maximum upfront sales charge of 5%, the annualised 3-year returns for investors would be -0.22% in Singapore and 2.93% in Malaysia, on average.

That is worse than putting your money in risk-free fixed deposits in both countries!

In short, these balanced funds (on average) are hardly servicing the investors – with poor performances, high annual fees and big upfront sales commissions.

Off Topic.

Whatever said and done, no matter who is right and wrong, I admire Ramjade for one trait; his perseverance or tenaciousness.

He reminds me of a drunken bar brawl where a person is outnumbered 5 to 1 but he keeps on swinging and doesn't give up.

Yes, that is another rare trait in a public forum.

A person who can put his ego aside in a quest to better himself will go far in life. Too often we hold the view, 'I have the best knowledge in unit trust investment, stock investment, in my chosen field, etc'. Everyone else who holds a different view is stupid or inferior or talking nonsense.

What a pity. In doing so, we end up short changing ourselves. Sorry, Uncle Vanguard is talking kok today.

You have an elephant's memory, sis. 😃

Yes, it was me who said many moons ago that we can't get rich from unit trust investments. It should just form one of our baskets of investment.

20's and 30's is when one work hard to build a career. Early 40's and early 50's would be the peak of the earning capacity. Mid 50's and 60's would be preparing for retirement.

I think Xuzen meant RM20k per fund is too little (for his age group).

If a person has only around RM100k (RM20k x 5 funds) in investments or savings in his mid or late 40's, he is in trouble. The money is not enough to form the base for his retirement.

It depends. If the 3-4 properties are fully paid or substantially mortgage free, then RM100k in additional cash could be enough. There is extra cash flow from the rental.

But if a person is still servicing the monthly housing loan for the 3-4 properties and can't afford to pay the housing loan for more than 3 months if there are no tenants, then big trouble ahead. RM100k will not last.

Yes, you are right. I was implying RM100k as net asset.

I sold off EISC about 2 weeks ago with a profit of 30% plus.

Today, I followed the sifus here and bought RM10K managed porftfolio. T+4.

Maybe I can use this as a cheapskate method to modify the main portfolio once I find out the exact funds under the managed portfolio.

Moderately Aggressive, 70% equity funds and 30% bond, I think.

My purpose is not really to gain fantastic return from the Managed Portfolio.

I am more interested in comparing the performance of the Managed Portfolio against my portfolio and also to know exactly what funds they are buying.

Wah, you very kwa cheong, sis.

No boss here sis, kuli only. Yes, I am quite interested to see the asset allocation of the Managed Portfolio. I believe you have a Managed Portfolio as well. If you don't mind me asking, which portfolio did you choose?

The Bond Express, Corporate Bonds, etc in FSM also looks interesting. Alas, I have no time to look into it now.

This post has been edited by Vanguard 2015: Sep 25 2017, 05:16 PM

FSM SG sounds interesting but I thought Malaysians who are not working there can't open a SG bank account?

Thanks bro.