I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but with the recent exposure of many moneygames, I want to check how secure is FSM in the event of any financial collapse?

I'm planning to put a substantial sum in there and the worst thing that can happen is I can only see the paper gain but not be able to access it in the off chance something happens.

Thanks for the responses.

I note:

"For cash investments, all units will be registered under iFAST Nominees Sdn. Bhd."

That's quite a concern tbh. I guess I have to weigh default risk as a consideration. What are some of your strategies here? Invest heavily in FSM as the only UT vehicle?

Yes that's is true and I don't for one second doubt your positive experience.

In fact I currently have some small sum in there as investments.

However as I'm considering putting a large sum, I need to be 101% certain that in the event of default what will happen. The fact that units are not in my name worries me a little. I'm sure a lot of you has a lot of positive experience with FSM, but in my line of work I deal with things when they go sour so if any of you corporate lawyers who knows the in and outs of an organisation like this, and are able to shed some light that'll be great.

This post has been edited by kingz113: May 5 2017, 10:49 AM

Yes in fact I'm seeking to see how platinum members are managing their risk.

I know my sum is tiny compared to the big boys, but it is my savings and I intend to protect it. Don't know how your post adds value to this discussion.

Thanks for the tip. You are right, I need to be much more experienced with UT investment before I do anything I'll regret. Going to read through all the thread if I can manage that.

a shoutout to all the contributors in this thread, a lot of selfless advice and help as I've read through the bulk of this thread. Good job!

A few pages back I mentioned that I decided to invest heavily into UT. The following are just some of my thoughts after a week of reading. I'm currently in the legal line but I was also did a few finance subjects during uni, so going through the various funds, reports and analysis did bring back a lot of fond memories.

The below are just thoughts, and not opinions. It represents what I do take into account before plunging into UT.

Thought #1
"Be fearful when everybody is greedy"
We have seen the market shooting up to record highs in the past few weeks. Valuations appear to be sky high at the moment. One thing I have to learn is how to read valuations properly and make my own assessment. I ask myself, why am I entering the market now? Is this a herd mentality?

Thought #2
"It was always a record high, until it is repeatedly surpassed"
This is probably an issue of timing the market. Again having some fundamentals to properly value the market is important.

Thought #3
There are a lot of concerning geopolitical issues in the world right now. These are your europe elections, North Korea factor, Trump factor, China shrinking factor, India factor, technology industry. Some lessons on accurately differentiating from puffery from real solid data is needed. This probably involves individual stocks rather than UT as a whole. However I guess fund managers track record and characteristic then becomes important. Is he/she someone who only chases short term gains or long term goals.

Based on the above, I've decided to split my investment half. Half into UT and half into purchasing below market value properties.

From half my UT, I will enter into UT in a staggered manner to continually monitor the issues highlighted in Thought #3. Probably 40-50% first then the rest in 10% increments.

My investment horizon is 10 years, and target is 8% per annum. I have confidence in Malaysian market so I've allocated slightly higher. I have less interest in other emerging markets as I just do not trust these places.

My proposed fund allocation is as follows:
35% AH Select Bonds
15% libra dividendextra
10% AH select dividend
10% Interpac dana safi
10% Manulife india
10% TA global tech
10% CIMB AP dynamic income

This post has been edited by kingz113: May 16 2017, 10:23 AM

I started reinvesting 2-3 months ago after a 4 yrs hiatus One of my good mates recommended me this fund so I purchased some. Don't plan to switch as it has given me some decent returns. He's also monitoring it for me and will update me should I need to change. Frankly I did zero research and one shouldn't do that.

I think as of today It fits my risk profile, as I'm looking for exposure to world market with an income stream. Not too volatile as well.

My allocation is 35% relatively safer, 25% relatively safe, 40% aggressive. All this assumes things don't go to absolute shit, which I also already have a contingency plan to quickly switch out.

I already have small small stocks which I purchased post 2008 crisis. My overseas retirement fund also have done relatively well just tracking the world equity prices. About 50% return in 4 years without any tracking whatsoever. Just pure luck.

As i monitor world news on a daily basis as part of my job, I hope I can smell a crisis from miles away and have the courage to respond accordingly.

Also am I right to say that if RM do strengthen, this will have adverse impact on funds that have an overseas exposure? My uneducated thinking is that the fund is worth xxx today due to forex, and if RM strengthens, the fund value automatically decrease to reflect current forex levels?

That makes sense, that is why the good ones deserve their management fee.

Your comments are much appreciated and what I needed to hear. You have given a lot to think about. Will reassess my portfolio and come back within another week of reading. I have until june 15 as all my funds had been sitting in a 1 year FD earning 4.4% *sigh*.

One a side note, how do you find out definitively each fund's country allocation? I just look through their factsheet, some provide this info, some don't.

Side Note 2: the author Wong Sui Jao in the link you quoted appears to talk a lot of sense, such a shame that I see his blog only ran until end of 2015.

This post has been edited by kingz113: May 16 2017, 05:30 PM

Just read about eUT. Noob question but just wondering what is the main difference between eUT and FSM? eUT seem to have lower sc.

Thanks looks like another way to diversify the risk. pays to read read read and research some more.

This post has been edited by kingz113: May 17 2017, 01:12 PM

If you look at the returns graph of AH select bond, you will notice that the volatility is extremely low. Even during the great 2008 crisis, the fund price only took a marginal dip. I doubt you will find it dipping meaningfully to buy it at a deep discount.

Just a few more thoughts as I continued my reading. We are almost at the 10 year cyclical recession cycle, but yet there are no signs of the economy hitting a brick wall. In fact, brexit, trump and the not too long ago euro crisis didn't trigger a massive sell down and economic depression.

I came across this article that states the world indexes have relatively flatlined over the last few years, and an author commented that this is actually the "cyclical recession", instead of your usual crash.

Coming into 2016-2017, AP and emerging markets appears to have resumed their bullish gains. Europe has continued their QE strategy, and we hear news like Apple is sitting on a ungodly cash pile waiting to invest. These all makes you think are we in for a massive bull run for the next year or two. Obviously this will highly depend on the rise of the USD and oil prices, but the general sentiment is the market is being very cautious. It is as if they're waiting for the signal "Go!", then they'll sprint for a bit, but pull their brakes when jitters are felt from North Korea, French Election, Trump etc.

It is also encouraging to note that after looking at the various funds, a good number of them are sitting on a ~15-20% cash pile ready to pounce.

This is reminiscent to the local property market, whereby everyone was expecting the bubble to pop due to possible buyer's default, but lo and behold, this problem have been greatly exaggerated and there are now talks of "market recovering" etc etc.

That said, PE for developed markets are sky high and as a result i will limit my exposure to them until their earnings can improve accordingly.

Man, all this information makes me wish I paid more attention during finance subjects in uni, so I can interpret charts better. There are so much more to know and reading more just makes you realise how much I don't know.

I'm in category A heading to B soon and have been monitoring this thread for the past 2 months.

For FSM, I've only just started this year so no real figures to report back yet. Plenty of good advice here and I've learnt so much and gained better confidence in the local market. I invest primarily overseas and was a little hesitant to invest locally initially, but this thread has given me quite a bit of confidence due to its focus on investor education, and not "market tips" approach.

As I've invested overseas for the past 4 years, it was indeed good times and I'm 95% in equities. As a result I've achieved a rough growth of about 54% in these years.

Moving forward, I've rebalanced my holdings both locally and overseas to about 60% FI and 40% equity.

Totally agree with this statement.

I remember very distinctly the time during the market crash in 2008 and the subsequent massive falling out of the USD. Self proclaimed experts were going around bashing the USD like it was some sort of junk currency. The majority of comments that I read were saying how it is valueless, chinese yuan will replace the USD as the currency in favour etcetc. However, amidst these loud noises, there were some sane whispers by level headed analysts analysing that the USD were massively undervalued, so were numerous USA stocks and properties. Lo and behold, USD and USA stocks are once again hitting record highs. I myself profited from it as I went in scooping the low prices.

And so, a very similar situation today has occurred today in Malaysia. Despite the negative news with regards to 1MDB, the facts and numbers are clear that Malaysia's economy is on track for growth. And I totally agree with Xuzen that we get these "penglipulara2" who preaches their theory of "buying during crash"; but when we are at a crash, instead of practising what they preach, they want to exit the local market entirely

I remember very clearly the sentiment during the 2008 crash. It was all doom and gloom like today's situation in Malaysia. The regular people couldn't see a way out of it despite hard solid numbers proving otherwise. Yet, the market came out of it stronger than ever.

So my point is I'm not advocating for the Malaysian market. However to these penglipura2, just cut your crap with your theories. I myself am keeping my 20% position in Malaysia riding out this storm. Btw, I was an early bird in IDS with a ROI of 29% already. A very nice tidy profit indeed.

Don't have much advice to contribute but only anecdotes.

This is most likely a period of profit taking. my main retirement port experienced various turbulent seasons (once -10% from peak) but again and again it's achieved new high, as it is currently. Continue to trust in diversification as my other non equity ports are all generating healthy returns.

I've stopped checking my fsm port for the time being and just riding out this storm. I just topped up a huge sum of money before this current dip so u can imagine my pain. Still I'm not pulling out as the recovery, when it comes, will be swift. Best thing now is to continue topping up as I will be in the coming weeks.

My main investment is my business. Others are properties, bitcoin, and very small crowdfunding. Building a warchest now from these alternatives to be ready to inject as I did in 2008. My fsm only takes up about 15% of my portfolio.

Next step is to top up bits and pieces in AP region and USA. Increasing my Japan exposure incrementally as well. However the bulk of my warchest will be reserved for when the economy really takes a huge dip. Until then it'll all sit in my flexi account.