I know the  problem is KL share getting lower each day contrary to asia market!

don't greedy... open gate for local 1st. Then only foreign. Now local also don't have lose to RT and M+ liao lo. Quite weird. Other region FSM have so many access this Malaysia apamacham.

Now so many broker already. FSMONE MY better buck up! I know they are reading this thread.

Because the latest research article is so much better. Less mistake and more sane action.

Not sure if you guys are aware. I believe the market is somehow starting to heat up.
In this section alone, we have a lot of newcomers asking for ETFs, SA, P2P investment, China/EM funds and etc.

To me, it's like a repeat of 2007/2008 when China funds are overheated and started to crumple. The risk appetite is growing higher and higher.

Just my 2 cents. Ignore me if you don't think so!

thanks for highlighting it for me. btw what FI is everyone holding these days

there's no fixed income funds that's non malaysia.

You could have a period of uncertainty or volatility from now till September 2019.
Market will usually react to certain circumstance and trying to price in to certain conclusion.

Exactly

I don't have FI in my portfolio.

Sold mine today.

:thumbsup: thks for the input

latest plan since the starts of this current uncertainties ....
bcos of my age,...my planning changed...may shift to EPF instead of FI funds..
planning still pending...

yes,...reached 55

I am holding Nomura since last August.
They hold MGS more than 60% last Jan I think. But the latest fact sheet show 94% cop sukuk. Pretty nice move I must say

While RHB bond fund hold the most. At 10%, standing top at top holding.

Yea. Been start selling bit to enter EQ and to SA since Jan.
So this news doesmt affect me much. Just the MYEQ being quite flat thru the Q1.

Seconded.

Bond funds, as I said earlier, usually adopt a buy-and-hold strategy. But not all bond funds do that all the time. There are high yield bond funds (not available on FSM Malaysia yet) which tend to trade a lot during an economic downturn. Other bond funds (such as Asnita) trade often as well. But you get a return of 5-5.5% over time, and with higher volatility.

Try this on FSM portfolio simulator.

Let's take Eastspring Investments Bond Fund and Asnita.

Assume 5-year-basket period and without rebalance.

100% asnita: 5.17% return over 10 years, volatility 1.30%
100% eastspring bond: 5.27% return over 10 years, volatility 1.13% 
50% asnita, 50% eastspring bond: 5.22% return over 10 years, volatility 1.19%

The idea I am trying to convey here is the above average PTR (frequent trading) and (slightly) low return (0.5% is not too much, but 0.5% out of 5% is not an insignificant amount, i.e. 10% I am looking at the marginal return here) makes Asnita less attractive as an investment candidate compared to its peers. Its performance is nowhere near the last quartile of all the funds compared, but still above average.

True. Nearly all bond funds are good portfolio stabilizers. Yet when you have other good bond funds/investment tools, why not opt for it? (Good as in good management style, less trading, and a little more return.) That said, you already have Eastspring Investments Bond Fund, which is not a bad idea.

I am aware that ASNB and KWSP will not give you double digit returns even though they invest in equities. What I consider is the investment and management style, in addition to returns and risks associated.

Every investor has his/her own portfolio and the type of mutual funds sought after by each investor will obviously be different.

You are right that Asnita is a decent choice in terms of risk-return ratio and Sharpe ratio. I won't expect to find a mutual fund which has exactly all the good characteristics I want. I just mentioned the above average PTR as something to observe over time. RHB Islamic fund trades in a more volatile manner.

Also note that when you diversify your portfolio make sure you don't invest in 2 funds which have similar underlying securities. Perhaps KWSP/ASNB already hold bond XYZ, and if Asnita hold the same bonds you may want to reconsider your choice. Just an advice.

I have a question regarding this:

"What you have posted with regards to alternative suggestions are good, but only in theory. If you have been in the market as a participant for a long time, you will realize there are practical considerations versus theoretical number crunching. Desk smart versus street smart. "

Do you mind giving examples?

(Hopefully it is not efficient market hypothesis vs technical analysis...)

I read several mutual fund and investment books before and I thought the authors should be telling the practical stories. No?

After all, if theories are wrong, investment book sellers would have been bankrupt long ago.

Actually, I read academic books about investment, those written for university students, not the New York Time's bestsellers you find near the entry of Kikokuniya at KLCC.

Those books are used for teaching and learning. Facts and figures may be outdated but the principals of investment, after many decades of stocks and bonds investing, hardly changes. You either adopt a conservative buy-and-hold strategy or take a speculative stand and ended up with market timing.

They are way more complex strategies if you consider derivatives, especially options and futures. You have option spreads, option straddles, swaps etc. 

3 bond funds seem like a lot. Note that balanced and mixed asset funds hold bonds as well. This includes ASNB FP funds and your EPF investment. You may be having too much bonds.

A healthy portfolio should not have more than 10 funds in total. (The most you can go is 12). 7-8 funds will be fine. 

1-2 bond funds
2-3 balanced funds (Includes ASNB FP)
2-3 equity funds

Plus EPF investment. Should be good enough, in my opinion. (Moreover, some will buy stocks on their own.)
Good point! Nearly missed out that one. Thanks for pointing out. Bond funds with shorter durations will certainly have higher PTR. But they shouldn't account for too large of a portion of the overall net asset over time. Look at the industry average over time and you can have an idea. Around 50-60%. But for 2 of the past 3 years Asnita is around 70-80% which is above average. It may not be due to excessive trading. I checked the fund's list of bonds and noticed that most of the fund's bond have 5-7 years to maturity.

Numbers in bracket represent bonds maturing on that year as a percentage of the NAV of the fund:

2019 (9.78)
2020 (1.53)
2022 (8.67)
2023 (7.72)
2024 (11.78)
2026 (6.35)
2027 (12.27)
2028 (20.78)
2029 (3.17)
2030 (1.19)
2032 (3.45)
2033 (1.84)

Contrast this with Eastspring Investments Bond Fund.

2019 (8.83)
2020 (12.22)
2021 (13.75)
2022 (25.92)
2023 (6.69)
2024 (0.5)
2025 (1.59)
2027 (6.17)
2029 (4.06)
2032 (3.54)
2033 (6.46)

Eastspring's bond fund mostly hold short-term bonds, yet they don't seem to have excessive trading with a lower PTR.

Anyway, this needs an ongoing monitoring and observation. Will keep an eye on this.

And regarding this:
Short term bonds mean they will mature soon. That's why they are the ones highly sought after by conservative investors when interest rate drops. Those investors will opt for bonds with slightly lower coupons and are about to mature soon. They will then lock in the interest rate guaranteed by the coupon.

As for default risk. This has nothing to do with the maturities. (Rating does have something to do with maturities. The shorter the maturities, the higher the rating.) Whether a company will default depends on a number of internal and external factors, such as management changes, presence of new competitors etc. If a company is not financially sound, its bonds will not have high ratings and will more likely to default, regardless of the issued bonds' maturities.
Which fund to purchase or sell is dependent on that person's financial position at the time he/she raises this question. It also depends on his/her risk appetite and age. Most important of all, it depends on the objective of that investment itself. Are you investing for retirement (for me, part of my investment is for this), for college/university tuition fees, for wedding (that's for my case as well), to buy a new home?

You can't compare your investment objective with others. After all, you are not going to share your net worth with others. No one knows how deep your pocket is. Only you know what you have and what you want.

Nor can you compare your risk appetite. Some are risk-averse, some are risk-indifferent, still others are risk-taking.

As for age. Younger ones will opt for slightly riskier investments, mostly equity funds, as you age, you move towards a higher proportion of balanced funds in your portfolio and when you retire, mostly bond funds and EPF "pensions". Most people will look at the risk return ratio, Sharpe ratio etc when choosing the suitable investment products.

And with an amount as large as 50-100k. Diversify!

Don't put a whole chunk into a single fund or investment instrument. The old adage still applies here: Don't put all eggs in one basket.

Buy or sell is not just about market timing. You should already know when to sell if you plan ahead, even before you start investing. Mutual fund investors should never go for short-term trading. You already hire a fund manager to do that for you, on a daily basis.

If you follow the 10-year economic cycle rule, that should be good enough. You usually hold a fund for 5-10 years, then sell your fund when you already achieved your investment target.

There is no best or worst time to start investing. The best time is now! The earlier you start, the better off you are. Once you have completed the technical and fundamental analysis, you should begin investing. I am glad I started as young as 20 years old. I guess that's a good enough age to begin with.

Hope that helps.

If you look at the percentage, that's fine. But I would advise you to control your fund numbers first, then only rebalance the percentage among the funds you hold. That would be a better approach.

This is because you are not directly investing in the securities hold under the fund. You are trusting your fund managers to manage them for you. There's an added risk. Management risk. Moreover, fund managers may retire and someone new will take over. He/She may have a different investment habit. In some cases, funds can even merge. This happens when fund houses want to eradicate bad-performing funds, yet don't want to risk losing too large of their client base, so they merge good and bad performing bunds together. This is rather ill practice, as I would call it, is not yet prevalent in Malaysia (still haven't heard of any), but it happens quite often in Wall Street.

That explains why keeping low number of funds will not do any harm to you. It eases your efforts to monitor your money and you can track your fund performance easily.

Not holding any ASNB/Balanced fund? I don't know how old you are (Maybe just 5 years older than me? Given that you are still 30 years away from withdrawing your EPF, and assuming 55 years of age for retirement) but I assume you are already working now.

Balanced/Mixed Asset funds are just as important as bond funds. A mix of bonds and stocks, they give good capital appreciation opportunity (7-8% annually) and act to preserve your capital. You enjoy low volatilities as well. 

If you understand Chinese (or are comfortable with Google Translate), here's a Sin Chew article to share: http://www.sinchew.com.my/node/1813924/存...基金%EF%BC%9F

This portion is the essence:
***********************

*1 There are 2 types of fund classes. Acc class which means accumulation class and Dist class or distribution class. Purchasing Acc class shares will mean all dividends and earnings are automatically reinvested on your behalf, so you don't have to worry about dividend reinvestment. If your investment objective is for retirement, this class is recommended for young investors who are still decades away from retirement. Dist class means the dividends will be distributed to you (credited to your cash or bank account) on a monthly, quarterly or yearly (annual) basis. Sometimes you will see MDIst or YDIst classes which imply that their distribution frequency (Monthly distribution for MDIst and yearly distribution for YDIst). This share class will be more useful for those who already retire and seek stable and regular cash flow.

This is implied in the same article:
Anyway, FSM Malaysia policy is to reinvest all your dividends and earnings automatically, and this applies to all funds. So, it does not matter whether you purchase an acc class or dist class. However, this does not apply to those in Singapore, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and other countries. FSM Singapore and Hong Kong, for example, give you an option to credit the dividends to your bank account.

************************

Very good read to me. (I highly recommend Sin Chew's Investment Weekly, published every Monday. Good advice on wealth management and choosing fund. On the third Monday of every month, there's even a Lipper league table for you to compare hundreds of mutual funds, most of which you can find on FSM!) Financial advisors all recommend balanced and mixed asset funds as part of one's retirement-planning portfolio. The success of ASNB and EPF is a good testament to the success of balanced fund and mixed asset funds in the long run. Anyway, disciplined and good management is a key secret to their success as well.

That said, I don't know about your risk profile. Most people as risk-averse, which means, to persuade them to risk more, you need to give them a better return to compensate for the risk premium. Some people are risk indifferent. To them, risk and return have no correlation. They expect the same return no matter how risky an investment is. Others are risk-taking, they are willing to risk more even though the return diminishes with greater risk.

If you are risk-taking, then a higher portion of equity funds will be suitable for you. You can keep things as they are now. Or you can consider adding commodities (gold, oil or palm oil (very popular in Malaysia)), options, futures, warrants, convertibles or "alternative investments" like asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized-debt obligations (CDO) etc. Now you are riskier than ever. Get ready for a bumpy ride.

If, however, you are risk-averse, then I would suggest you to rebalance your portfolio now. You stand to earn with good risk-return ratio in the long run.
Honestly, that's a good enough research methodology. Malaysian bonds are good investment target for me. High investment-grade ratings (BBB+ and above) with high returns (4-5%). If you look at overseas bond funds, most of them love to mix investment-grade bonds with high-yield (low rating) junk bonds. Yet the return rate is only somewhat comparable to that of their Malaysian counterparts. And added to that is currency exchange risk. If MYR depreciates against the greenback, you stand to earn in the long run, but there is no guarantee. 

Opt for foreign government bonds, and you get a very low return, especially for Singapore, Hong Kong and the US treasury bills/notes. Only 2% on average, albeit with a AAA and AA+ rating. Low returns notwithstanding, inflation rate in those countries are pretty low as well. So, it makes sense for their citizens to invest but obviously for us, whose country's inflation rate is 2% on average, you have better options.

60% portfolio in ASNB FP is good enough. You should be a moderately conservative investor, I guess. A little equity plus a significant portion of mixed asset and balanced fund with some bonds. Your investment return should be about 7-8% in the long run. (I may be wrong though, just a smart guess.)

Investment is a subjective matter at best. You make your money work for you, not you working for your money.

I can't understand, nor can I imagine people investing without reading any books or articles beforehand. If you don't understand something, look for answers. Even before you go for backpacking these days, you will do your own homework: look for accommodations, restaurants, rest houses, places of interest etc. and compare the prices, reputations etc.

I borrow all my finance and investment books from the library. I read Sin Chew's Investment Weekly every Monday and I watch Bloomberg TV online and on UniFi TV (Free channel for Unifi subscribers). That's good enough for me. Low cost and easily accessible source of information. Authoritative and you never afraid of "fake news" or other incorrect information. Don't trust online sources unless it is from a reputable media. Don't care what articles are shared on social media. Never bother them. (Mind you, I don't have a FB/Twitter/Instagram/WhatsApp account for years, and I find my life more meaningful than ever before.)

20 years old is already old, at least when you compare yourself with Warren Buffet who ventured into commodities trading in his teenage years. (Today, even in your 30s and 40s, I bet most people won't invest in commodities at all.) I am grateful because my parents educate me on the importance on savings since I am young. My mother is a thrifty person. And I somehow inherit her personality. I followed my mother to banks often and I learnt about FDs. As I age, I learnt that FDs will not be a viable long-term investment option (I still don't fully understand the meaning of investment back then). That's when I picked up books and read up investment stuffs.

Apart from that, trust is important. Not many mothers or fathers would put 30k or so in his/her son's ASNB account, who just graduated from his A-levels and hasn't entered university yet. My mother did. She trust me. And so I won't let her down. ASN Sara 1, a mixed asset (60% bond + 40% equity, mostly local securities) fund. She opted for that herself and asked for my IC (surprised me at first).

I would latter find out that the 5% sales charge (now 3.5% only) means she made a horribly wrong investment choice. But, well, her money anyway, so she decides.

Research and reports are showing that more and more Malaysians are no longer good at managing their wealth. This is an alarm to all parents out there. Educate your children since young and don't make it a habit to fulfill all your kids' wants. I still remember waiting for the Sunway shuttle bus near the bus stop of my hostel and watching a teenage boy driving a Mercedes-Benz, zipping past me. My response? Shake my head and wonder why his parent would allow him to drive such an expensive car. I also wonder if he already know how to manage his own money, if not his parents' money. 

Lastly, "Follow the Money". Know where every cent of yours go. You stand to be a successful investor in the long run.

Never afraid of home bias. (It is very important as an investor not to follow your feelings or "sixth sense"!) But since you are a high risk taker and seem to have deep pockets, go for riskier investment. You can also look for funds whose securities come with high currency exchange risk. It's good to have a financial planner to manage your wealth. (Just make sure your financial planner works for you. Don't take everything she/he said for granted.) Also check if your financial planner is a CFA or CFP charterholder (or owns a finance-related certificate/degree).

You are right about the ridiculous sales charge. Ever since my mother's "trap", I am more cautious now.

Equities in most countries did well this quarter. If you started investing since the 2009 economic crisis and your goals have achieved, it's time to exit the market given the current looming uncertainty. Brexit and trade war not yet done. Most equity funds should give you double digit return since the crisis back then. (Just look at the 10-year annualized return rate for most funds and you will have a good idea of the earnings since the 2009 crisis). Risk-averse investors, I think, should go for bond or balanced funds or FDs.   

Quarterly reports for the S&P 500 companies are coming out this week. Will see how the market reacts.

After so many conversations, nobody is telling what fixed income funds are they holding onto now.

Don't be stressful as long as everybody is making money out from the bull market.

If only there is such thing as unit trust that only do short position. Haha.

Hello sifus, I already have Asnita, does it make sense to also get Nomura Income or let go of Asnita and get Nomura? Any input is much appreciated.

Just check if it overlaps. That's all.

Yes, I've done the comparison and saw Nomura's prospect as compared to Asnita. That is why I am thinking of switching or adding.
Btw, I read about Nomura Holdings troubles in Bloomberg. Should I be concern? Will that affect Nomura Asset Management?