I manage to browse Msia FSM fund houses. Hmmm now I understand why some of you mention not worth holding more than 3 years. If I am in your shoes I will invest ETF too.

Note I am not implying those fund managers are weak just I cross check their performance with those Spore based hmmm. Also some religion theme fund really limit the stocks fund managers can buy.

Sorry as I am posting from my Spore based perspective. I think for you all ETF looks better bet for more returns.

After finding out I can access FSM Msia I do a scan. The recommended funds are not bad. But the Fund Selector Show Columns lack the Dividend Yield %, Dividend Frequency for those who want to target dividend paying UT.

Overall I think the number of Fund Managers are too little. Even the recommended funds section has too little funds.
For e.g Spore recommended funds section our selections are
Core Portfolio Equity,Asia Ex Japan,Asia Pacific Ex Japan,China,Europe,Global,Global Emerging Market,Greater China,Japan,US
Supplementary Portfolio. ASEAN,Emerging Europe,Latin America,China-Local,India,Msia,Russia,Spore
Sector Portfolio. Disruptive Innovation,Financials,Healthcare,Property,Resources,Technology,Asia Pac Property

When lee82gx mention very little funds worth to hold more than 3 years I now tend to agree with you. Your choices seem more limited so perhaps may want to consider ETF or even stocks. Maybe as times go by FSM Msia bring in more fund managers and funds you consider again.

Btw not sure how Bursa exchange charge but in Spore SGX, besides the 8.80 we pay to FSM we still need to pay some small percentage to SGX as fees. So while ETF,stocks offer faster or more profits please keep in mind all these charges. They are applied for every buy/sell and that includes RSP as well. These fees will add up depending on your trading frequency.

For SGX Reit stocks, instead of dividend payout we can opt for shares so these shares is like normal shares and you no need pay fees. I am not sure about Bursa Reit stocks though. Reit stocks are quite a hit with Spore investors. Got "allowance" and yet still remain invested in the stock. The capital gain may not be high but remember if you sell all, you need to find another stock or buy back again. This is quite troublesome for semi-passive investors.

I have taken a look at StashAway it seems you put in monies they choose the ETF based on your risk preferences. This mean you are unable to dictate which specific ETF to be bought by Stashaway for your portfolio. However I think the nice feature is you incur much lesser fees for buy/sell ETF if you are to buy/sell each of them individually yourself. Fractional lot is painful to sell. This strategy is very similar to FSM Managed Portfolio concept.

In order not to divert too much I will post in StashAway thread for further questions and keep this specific to FSM feature. This is basic courtesy I think.

Hi I notice the first post in this FSM Msia thread is by AIYH. I know this is a Msia forum so I would like to seek approval if I can share FSM Spore related stuff in this thread besides discussing about generic investment related stuff?

E.g I saw the FSM Msia promotion going on and now in FSM Spore we have also a new promotion going on.

I have been investing since late 90s till now so I notice every now and then new investment theme will appear and take the world by storm. Don't get too caught up in it as it could just simply abe fashion trend so as to speak. Whether it will be profitable are all unknown. Let me give an example.

Sometime during early 2000, FSM have articles talking about this new acronym BRIC (Brazil,Russia,India,China) funds. Basically it says these 4 emerging countries are identified to be profitable in future so funds that specifically invest in these 4 countries stocks appear. Now 2021 what I do know is only India and China make the cut. So if you invest in BRIC your returns will not be fantastic as it get pulled down by Brazil and Russia. Then why not just India and China can already? Well it exist but the fund names become XXX Emerging Markets so it is generic and fund managers can switch countries stock accordingly.

Back to current Disruptive Innovation etc to me is just another fashion trend. Whether it works out in the future is anyone guess. Tread carefully every time a new investment theme come out. Don't be the pioneers but I do agree if it works out correct pioneers reap the giant share of profits.

I saw someone asking is it better to go for a combined India-China fund or two separately India and China fund. My own take is this. Typically for a combined like India-China fund is to spread out the risk. E.g now China is in deep red but India is still doing ok at the moment. This mean this fund may still be in green albeit smaller color. If separate fund then the China only fund will be in red color deeply. Likewise if China suddenly bull run then the China only fund will reach enormous green color whereas the combined India-China still green but not so green as it has India stocks in it.

Lesson is high risk high returns.

Next fund mandate is quite important to fund manager as if it is a India-China, pure India, pure China they are not allowed to invest in stocks that is not part of the mandate. If they want I think they need to issue a statement to all existing fund holders they are changing the mandate. With Emerging Markets mandate fund managers have more freedom. Now they invest in India-China purely still ok. Later if they want say Indonesia stocks they also can invest as their mandate is very wide as in Emerging Markets.

Personally for newbie in fund investment I would strongly suggest invest in region first as it spread out the risk. Less green color ok as long as green color. Once you have say Asia-Pacific,Europe,US,Greater China etc then you can start to look at individual country or sector funds. Take note the risk classification in FSM is not there without a reason.

Individual country funds is a hit and miss for me so far. But with FSM Spore min 100 initial investment I can try more. I understand FSM Msia and FSM Spore have their own promotion and sales charges but what I hope is both countries FSM can learn from each other and come out with the best promotions and/or services for their respective country customers.

I think I share about this before overlapping of the top 5/10 holdings among different funds. In this case obviously you don't need to buy 2 just 1 is enough. Then which one correct? I share my thoughts.

1. This fund X is say fund house Y. Does Y also offer other funds that look promising? If yes fund X ok as I can do intra-switch easily to other funds in same fund house in case fund X drop too badly

2. This fund X min initial and subsequent invest amt. First time buy we tend to be cautious and don't want put too much in. As in we want to test water. FSM Spore latest promotion give us this chance.

3. Historical performance. For new funds there are no past record to refer to so it is more of a higher risk but it can also mean this newbie is promising also.

4. Some newbie fund are just feeder fund to mother fund which has a long history so this newbie is riding on that mother fund. Not exactly a newbie. Look at their expense ratio for feeder fund it should not be too much since their job is easier just put monies and let mother fund do the hard work of picking stocks.

I hope others share their thoughts too.

I think this is entirely possible especially for different funds under the same fund house X. I came across an e.g which I call it overlapping/duplication in my previous post.

Fund House X has:
Fund A - China
Fund B - Greater China

Factsheet of A and B top 5,10 top holdings indicate a very heavy overlap/duplication of the same stocks. The only difference is the percentage weightage allocated since A can only be purely China. And for these A and B factsheet put the same fund manager names!

In fact even across different fund houses, you can also see such overlapping/duplication which is why in one of my earlier post, is it wise for us to buy so many overlapping/duplication of stocks in multiple funds? The percentage weightage are different of cuz but it is same stocks.

Personally for me if the overlapping/duplication is too much (say 70% same), I would just pick one fund instead of multiple funds. I suspect reason why there are heavy overlap/duplicate could be the fund managers are buying the stocks that comprises of the index they are benchmarking with and the remaining 30% stocks outside the index in an attempt to beat the benchmark?

In theory if a fund manger stock pick skills is good he should not take it easy by just buying so many stocks that comprises of the index, because if that is the case a ETF is better (lower expense ratio) and he/she is just taking easy monies from investor by doing minimal work. My personal opinion of cuz.

Depend on your faith. Back in 2000 I bet on China and India and now 2021 over this 20 years of ups and downs including bear and bull market it is ok. The same cannot be said of other country though. As for US it has it's ups and downs too so typically I bet on US,China,India to still have room to steam ahead. In between can try other country or sector funds for more aggressive portfolio.

Last time US sneeze whole world market affected. Now China sneeze whole Asia market affected. So there is still room for China to overtake US position at least before I retire.

? You know a lot of non-FSM customer uses FSM free features to screen funds? I think the fund factsheet is accessible (you no need to login FSM as customer to get this) and there is usually a section called Top 5 or Top 10 holdings showing the stock names and the percentage allocated. It will usually also show charts or numbers of the fund performance against the benchmark they are performing against. And many many good features.

Below pls read if you got the time as it is not related to your question but give you some "history" lessons haha.

This lead to ppl like Ramjade in FSM Spore using the FSM features to screen fund and then to escape the quarterly platform fees invest in poems becuz poems,dollarDex fund research material are really limited. Ramjade such investors are not the first nor the last to use such strategy. Back in year 2000 ppl already use the same tactics. Use FSM features screen fund and then invest in dollarDex.

Why then does FSM still give out free info you may ask correct? I can think of two reasons. One is not all about monies it is about the founders behind FSM really passionate about fund investment and willing to share the knowledge to ppl even if those ppl are not FSM customer. They understand there will be ppl like Ramjade tactics but they still proceed. Second I can think of is after sometime serious fund investors know the hard work FSM is doing in fund investing arena that they are willing to fork some fees. Think of it as a way of giving back to some entities that help them make monies. Now FSM has grown beyond just fund into ETF, stocks that is a sign of the company growing up and even IPO in Spore SGX. It now exist in Msia and HK and more countries in future perhaps.

During 2000 FSM and dollarDex are fighting on fund market share in Spore and FSM does impose a sales charge and dollarDex fight on this by making it cheaper. And after 20 years what we see? FSM is listed in SGX and expanding. I think dollarDex aka Navigator Investment Services Ltd is later bought up by Aviva? It shows dollarDex has lost the "war" to FSM essentially but with Aviva backing still around I guess.

Conclusion: Commission,platform,annual etc fees are what a lot of investors want to avoid to reap maximum returns, sometimes we need to ask if the fees are not a lot and it has helped you to make monies it doesn't harm to pay some as after all the platform has a company behind need to maintain infra, employ workers etc.

I think in all businesses we need to reach a critical mass in order to launch such promotion. Reason being you need the volume and traffic to absorb the "loss" from business view and hope to "recoup and earn" by a lot more volume bought/sold from customer etc. FSM Spore in the early years do impose a sales charge and it is only years later when they sort of reach enough "business" do they start to offer such promotion at 0% sales charge.

FSM Msia may not have reached that critical mass yet so business wise not able to give such promotion. Give it time to grow like how FSM Spore did way back in year 2000. But not sure FSM Msia face which fund business competitor this time round. I know FSM Spore face off dollarDex in year 2000.

StashAway is also on annual recurring fee mechanism just to say. Sales charge upfront means when you put X dollars, upfront you get less than X dollars worth of units which actually hurt more. If you look at fund fact sheet some returns they have two numbers. One as it is and one with sales charged levied. The sales charge do impact your returns more in comparison to the quarterly platform fee in my opinion. If you managed to get a good fund, the returns can help to cover your quarterly platform fee. Of cuz I avoid this as I usually invest using CPF which does not have fees and also usually buy dividend paying funds to help cover the fees. Now I am on diamond tier no quarterly platform fees.

Fees is everywhere. Be it upfront like ETF,stocks,fund etc versus a periodic frequency levied fees you can't escape. As long as the financial instrument you invest give you good returns to help cover that fees and still got profits it is ok in my opinion. Of cuz I understand some investor don't like recurring fees which is ok also just don't invest and look for other financial instruments like stock,ETF for e.g

Just to give an e.g last time I buy from bank 10k sales charge 5% I lost 500. 500 is alot! I only invest 9.5k to buy the units. Imagine I got 10k worth of units and the fund good I get more profits to help pay the fees which is levied only 3 months later and then every quarter.

This post has been edited by sgh: Dec 14 2021, 02:50 PM

Funds with no sales charge and lesser platform fees you got lobang to introduce?

Currently for FSM Spore the quarterly platform fee is below
Equity funds
0.0875% for first S$300,000
0.05% for amount beyond S$300,000
0% for diamond tier client

The 300k is regardless of cash or CPF so you can invest using CPF instead. CPF is equivalent to your Msian EPF,PRS which also enjoy 0% quarterly platform fee also I think. So can follow my last time strategy use FSM for non-cash trade. Unfortunately FSM Msia seem not to have dividend paying funds (I mean dividends paid out not reinvest kind) else cash trade to buy those dividend paying funds.

Poems and dollarDex both I got accounts already. Yes now 2021 I checked they are much better but since I reach diamond tier in FSM no sense to transfer all holdings out to them. Furthermore, poems is still more for stock/etf trading. Usually ppl get the research info from FSM website and then go buy in poems and dollarDex this is normal.

Back in year 2000 in terms of web online (that time no mobile app) interface FSM is still the best. Poems was primarily for stock trading and dollarDex online interface lousy. They lost me as a customer back then. Now want me to go back abit hard as all my holdings already in FSM and no platform fees (reach diamond tier) and now got promotion $100 minimum initial investment for each fund which poems, dollarDex don't have. If say they have I will consider shift some of my cash funds over.

I got about the same calculation as you indeed based on 0.0875%. If SC can go below 2% say 1.5% over 10 years yes SC fund actually better. That is why I say I use FSM Spore for my CPF funds (0% platform fee) and cash for dividend paying funds. Now dividend paying fund will be tricky as the url assume all get reinvested for easier calculation. If I set to 0.05% (300k above is this value) the SC must go lower to say 1% to be better. But now I have reached diamond tier so all this do not matter to me anymore.

Then stuff that cannot be so easily compared is the minimum initial investment of $100. This will be harder to compare but I get to spread out many different funds for the same X dollars in comparison to X dollars only on one fund. What if this one fund performance very lousy? The opportunity cost I incurred.

So when we evaluate an investment platform we cannot always just focus on fees purely alone. We need to factor in other features offered and if that is also attractive. Some of this feature is harder to measure and more dynamic in nature. Just to say I am not putting everything into FSM Spore as that will be very risky. That is why I still retain my poems and dollarDex accounts for future since now they improve alot.

And also for CPF funds. Maybe to Msian EPF,PRS don't mean much but to us Sporean it meant A LOT Reason being at age 55 we cannot withdraw all so we need to make sure we let our CPF make the most profits as much as possible with the least fees in this case for FSM Spore it is 0% platform fees.

This is why for Sporean investing we treat the difference very big. CPF investment and cash investment. This big difference is also reflected in the funds that are for sale. Fund ABC only cash. Same fund ABC (CPF) purely for CPF. The fund house actually understand the needs and purposely create two separate but actually same fund to lure more investors. The CPF version has lower expense ratio in order to fulfill the requirement in order for it to take investor CPF monies.

Maybe this is Msia forum so many investors don't see the diff but back in Spore forum this CPF vs cash investment is hot debate! A lot of times got new investment instruments we Sporean will ask can use CPF or not as first question.

I used to read FSM Spore Wong Sui Jau fund articles from year 2000 onwards. Now he has setup his own company and become his own company CEO, semi-retired. As for assi blog he/she is talking about investment in general not specifically targeting CPF investment. REIT stocks, funds etc all are in the blog. So what he has mentioned I have done like REIT,funds,stocks (although I lose monies on stocks investing due to my contra and short last time).

For his articles specifically on CPF investing sorry I do not agree. He fall into the trap of most ppl let it park inside to earn 2.5% and 4%. I think I have uploaded a screenshot of my cpf investment before and it does outperform that 2.5% govt is giving. Think about it, govt cannot be giving you 2.5% out of nowhere they need to invest get profits to give you correct? So why let govt take your monies (yes CPF monies is our own under govt care) and invest earn profits and give you back that miserable 2.5%?

I understand a lot of kopitiam uncles,aunties dunno yes they park inside play safe. For those slightly savvy it doesn't hurt to invest DIY with your own monies instead of let govt invest. Furthermore govt impose a limit of 20k, 40k which cannot be taken out for investment so you already have a protection layer.

Sorry I can go on more but since this is FSM Msia I will leave it as it is. Sorry for diverting topic. Will toggle back to FSM in next post.

PS The killing point is Msia EPF can withdraw all at age 55 while Spore CPF cannot. This is enough to drive Sporean crazy to look and maximize their CPF monies beyond that miserable 2.5 and 4%

For those who have stock trading experience would know ETF is traded exactly the same as stock. Note I mention the word trader. Typically they don't hold the stock/ETF long they just want to flip and earn the difference in profits/losses. ask price, bid price, sell down, buy up, contra, shorting etc that are used in stock applies same with ETF too.

But for a investor (instead of a trader), they feel that ETF counter is a basket of stocks represented as a single counter in stock exchange. This is similar to unit trust/mutual fund where it is a basket of stocks in one fund. But the trading mechanism between ETF and mutual fund is quite different. I don't see contra, shorting (long time ago ppl attempted this but failed due to the price lag in mutual fund buy/sell process) in mutual fund.

8.80 vs 25+ which we used to pay to Spore brokerage is half price and more cheaper. But transact via FSM shares are under FSM custodian acct not in CDP acct. But I guess for Msian CDP acct means nothing.

Ramjade mention SGX good for REIT stocks and not much else so he go for US stocks and ETF via IBKR paying even lesser fees. Guess diff investors diff strategies.

But isn't ibkr, moomoo etc all under custodian model? And yet so many investors is ok. I belong to old generation but I need to keep up with the times. Pain is always when you want to transfer holdings out from custodian A to another company custodian B.