Hi understand this is a Malaysia online forum but notice alot of discussion on fundsupermart. So I register to share and exchange opinions from each other.

I start investing with FSM when they first launched in Spore 2000. They only do buy/sell UT,ETF in their early days and also company has not IPO yet. Now year 2021 they have grown so much and do so many kinds of business besides UT,ETF.

As FSM long time customer, my lesson learnt is UT,ETF is really more for holding medium to long term and in between re-balance. You should be profitable provided you selected the right UT,ETF. It is not suitable for investor going for quick bucks which are more for stock/share, currency etc investment which can realize profits/losses super fast and I notice FSM also doing stock/share trading business nowadays too.

My investment strategy is CPF (aka Msia EPF equivalent) are for holding medium to long term. Cash I typically go for dividend paying UT. That means alot of UT,ETF is restricted for my case. Only CPF approved UT can I invest and only dividend paying UT can I invest.

Would like to hear from fellow members what is your investment strategy. EPF (for you all?) and cash. For Spore CPF invesment all profits goes back to CPF (until I can like a tortoise withdraw abit abit at retirement age 63?) so I tend to just switch profits to buy other UT,ETF never to realise. Cash I like the feeling to get monies every month so I target dividend paying strictly.

Lastly, keep safe everyone.

Then EPF work very similar (except you all can withdraw all out at age 55 ? we cannot monies die inside only can withdraw abit abit like monthly allowance) to Spore CPF. We have CPF-OA give 2.5%, CPF-SA give 4%. Minimum cannot invest is CPF-OA 20k and CPF-SA 40k. But 2.5,4 is definitely quite lousy so take monies out invest after meet 20k,40k cannot invest criteria.

My logic is UT I put X dollars it is X dollars worth of units. The quarterly platform fee kicked in later and by that time my UT already earn monies to pay. As for ETF it is upfront put X dollars take SGD 8.80 Flat Fee per transaction means upon buy I "lose" 8.80. Sorry to me 8.80 also alot haha.

Understand ETF mgmt fees etc are very much lower than UT but I do research some UT do can outperform them so choosing the correct UT is crucial. I want to ask FSM Spore UT FSM Msia ppl can buy and vice versa? Because when I use FSM Spore fund selector I cannot see the UT you all mention in this forum so I think they are segregated?

Means EPF MUCH BETTER because can take ALL OUT. For CPF we got minimum sum to maintain that cannot be cashed out and that sum keep rising every year! Same with our retirement age going to age 63 soon! Imagine you age 55 cannot find work need monies all die inside cannot take out. I know this is straying from investment thread so I shall stop at here.

Actually for UT, the daily NAV price released is already net off all charges. So when we compare the performance we are already looking at those numbers without the charges. And with these numbers take to compare with ETF and if it still perform better means this UT is ok can consider.

Just recently I notice a UT that is like ETF that can be invested using CPF monies. Infinity Global Stock Index C SGD Annual Mgmt Charge 0.2%. It basically is a feeder fund into the famous Vanguard Global Stock Index Fund in US tech stock like Apple,Amazon etc that form the MSCI World Index. Then you may ask why not invest direct into Vanguard correct? Well as I say I want to invest using CPF and not a lot of UT are allowed to take CPF monies. Spore MAS has quite stringent criteria on UT that accept CPF monies.

Our Spore CPF contribution rate is quite high for both employer and employees in comparison to Msia EPF and that is why I keep wanting to use those CPF monies to invest rather than let govt take and invest and then return me the measly 2.5 and 4.

For cash I still prefer dividend paying (monthly, quarterly) UT (it may have lower returns) but as long as green color it is ok. I am retiring soon so every month got monies come in as dividends is better for me. The CPF monies stuck inside unlike Msia EPF can take all out.

Long time ago in FSM Spore investors have a great debate on UT vs ETF. There are some hardcore ETF and some hardcore UT. For me I am neutral. I just compare perf among them I have no preference. ETF main argument is always the lower charges etc. But for me if ETF lower charges but performance cannot beat the UT then it is moot? So I look at the returns instead be it UT or ETF. Also for me whether I can use CPF monies to invest in ETF is a big criteria as CPF got a-lot monies stuck inside.


I think you meant CPF (Spore we call CPF but in Msia you all call it EPF). Yes CPF can be used to invest in stock. But you must know all CPF monies profits if say you sell the stock will goes back to your CPF. It can never be transformed into cold hard cash. Not sure about EPF though.

Why I don't use my CPF and invest into stock as it is too risky as UT is a basket of stocks so lesser risk. And also with X dollars put into UT, your X dollars are used to buy "many stocks" compared to a single stock with X dollars you invest yourself. Of cuz returns will correspondingly be lower using UT which is why UT is more for medium to long term.

I would like to know monthly DCA I assume is invest once a month correct? Would like to know if anyone also goes for weekly or fortnightly DCA instead of monthly? Daily DCA don't make sense for UT,ETF I guess.

Ok why I ask about DCA weekly instead of monthly is because only recently I start to invest in UT that is denominated in China RMB or FSM CNH. I will usually need to convert my Sing dollars to CNH before put a purchase. I notice the currency exchange rate can fluctuate quite a fair bit even daily. If you change big sums that difference can eat into your returns. So now for me, my Sing dollar currency UT/ETF is DCA monthly like what you all did. For UT/ETF currency that is not Sing dollars for e.g CNH I DCA weekly.

I also did a search, FSM offer say UT123 (Sing dollars) and the SAME UT123 (CNH). But it will be S$1000 vs CNH1000. So with S$1000 I can buy at least 5 CNH denominated UT/ETF. That is, with X dollars I am able to diversify into more UT/ETF gaining more exposure. The downside to this is currency exchange that can potentially eat into your returns. Hence I am quite cautious of this and always look to do currency exchange weekly instead of monthly. So as I exchange I also proceed to put a purchase my weekly DCA operation so as to speak.

For you all, do you invest in UT/ETF where currency is not denominated in MYR ?

PS Btw Sing dollars now quite weak against CNH. Used to be S$1 give 5 CNH.

What you have said is true. In fact when I read FSM articles they already said if suppose the stock is in CNH, even if the fund is say SGD denominated, the fund manager will still take your Sing dollars and convert so as to buy that stock. That is why some UT has this XXX and then XXXX-H aka hedged.

Back to earlier topic on DCA I do practice monthly DCA (time salary comes in) like most ppl. Just happen for my foreign currency denominated UT/ETF, I take a slightly more frequent weekly or fortnightly DCA. So was asking investors here for foreign currency denominated UT/ETF do you all also do monthly DCA or like me invest more frequent. Or none of you invest in UT/ETF that is of foreign currency ?

Also to clarify although I do weekly DCA the total amount will be about the same as monthly DCA. E.g X dollars for monthly will be about X dollars / 4 for each weekly DCA.

You are correct there. This is why some investor do look at the fund size besides expense ratio etc. FSM homepage has a section on Top Volume by Sales but I think this refer to sales transacted via FSM platform so not sure if it is enough as I believe the fund house also accept transactions from various parties besides just FSM.

I would like to ask what are the criteria you all will use to determine which UT to invest based on the fund factsheet url provided by FSM?

For me they are
- Included under CPFIS OA/ CPFIS SA, SRS (this is not applicable to non-Sporean I know)
- Fund Factsheet (this is impt becuz sometimes the fund name says Global XXX but you look into the pdf top 10 holdings all dominated by China,India,US companies)
- Fund Size
- Fund House (this is to see if there are other funds under same house so can do intra-fund switching easily in future)
- Geographical Allocation
- Fund Currency Denomination (is it USD, CNH etc)
- Launch Date
- Price History
- Fund Historical Price
- Offer to Bid Returns
- Historical Dividend/Frequency (this is not applicable for fund not giving dividend I know)
- Min Initial Amount
- Min Subsequent Amount
- Min RSP Investment
- Min Redemption Amount
- Min Holding

Was expecting answers but you ask question so I will give my version. What do you mean by like? E.g Is it you like Microsoft in fundA but it is not performing as well as fundB which does not have Microsoft? If yes then for me I look at which fund give better returns. Emotionally attached to which stock is a no no in my strategy.

For me I see my local currency after exchange give me how much. E.g SGD need to fork out more 1.5+k to buy one USD 1k fund. SGD 1k can buy about four CNH 1k funds. Of cuz the CNH fund returns must also be good.

Offer to bid I just use fsm website to check the different funds. Someone told me another website I will check soon.

CPFIS every withdrawal incur a service charge to the bank mandatory to open acct in order to invest. So no 3 months concept. But you need to maintain 20k OA and 40k SA untouched. Only monies above that then can use to invest.

Some fund min RSP is 500 too much for me. I prefer lower like 100. So with 500 I can top up 5 fund instead of 1 gaining more exposure.

Sorry you mention relationship with the FM ? Does it mean if that guy/gal left and join other fund houses you will also withdraw and purchase the fund that guy/gal is managing in the new fund house ? Long long time ago, there are discussion on those very good fund manager how once they left monies flow out from the fund they used to manage to the new fund he/she now manage in the new fund house as investors chase after that talented FM trusting his/her skills to pick the correct stocks.

Not sure if anyone of you notice some funds are just the "combination" of other funds as one?

Example one
XXX China
XXX Greater China
Both funds are from the same fund house. If you take a look at the top 10 Holdings you will see at least a 70-80% overlap among the two. Maybe 1-2 non-China in the XXX Greater China the rest are same as XXX China. The % varies but it is same stocks.

Example two
XXX China
XXX India
XXX Emerging Market
All funds are from the same fund house. If you take a look at the XXX Emerging Market, the top 10 holdings are basically the combination of selected top 10 stocks in XXX China and XXX India.

This lead me to think each fund factsheet top 5/10 holdings are important information. You don't want to "waste" monies in say investing all three XXX China, XXX India, XXX Emerging Market funds. As for XXX China, XXX Greater China maybe invest one is enough.

Across different fund house XXX China, also look at their top 5/10 holdings some overlap so much so it is best you buy from one of them will do and not both.

Avoiding too much overlap means your X dollars can invest in more other funds reaching out to more stocks perhaps overlooked.

I agree. What I have listed earlier is if the overlap of the top 5/10 holdings stocks between funds is too high, then it maybe wiser to just purchase one fund rather than two or three in my examples. It is about stretching your X dollars to reach out to more diversified basket of stocks.

Here in Spore I find a few XXX Global, you look into fund factsheet the top 5/10 holdings are at least 90% US IT stocks. Same for XXX Emerging Market, you look into fund factsheet it is China plus India. The fund name is so misleading to me. When I read Global how can the top 5/10 holdings all concentrated on US IT stocks? Likewise for Emerging Market.

Someone told me the word Global is just a mandate given to the fund manager he can pick stocks around the world but he can buy 90% US IT stocks and it still satisfies the Global mandate. Same argument for Emerging Market. If that is the case, investors now need to be extra careful, do please peruse the fund factsheet in detail to know what you are investing into.

I have been investing with FSM when they launched in 2000 which is much older than StashAway etc new entrants. I already have a diversified portfolio. But me now coming age 50 want to allocate a small portion to be riskier get higher returns hence I target single country or sector.

Having gone through 1998 financial crisis, 2008 Lehman brothers crisis and now Covid19, I have learned the time to invest is when everyone pull out. However this Covid19 may last much longer so I doing more research and hence the questions I ask in forum.

There are some funds with risk rating 10 and seem to follow more obscure index. There are funds where it can only invest in Asian small companies. This truly test the FM skills to pick the stocks but the returns are huge.

Single country and sector is risky but with good returns once they bounce back. Agree some single country really CMI I follow one country 3 years still red colour so cut loss sell. China India US are best bets IMO especially China really rocket from year 2000 to now.

South America, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Russia, Australia etc are all those I have not tried and look risky indeed. Look at Brazil recently.

I do have REIT stocks in SGX. Since this thread is about FSM I thought focus on this. ETF incur fees just like UT no doubt but what I like is UT CPF investment feature equivalent to your EPF. Our CPF contribution rates are high and we cannot withdraw all at age 55. So I need to find ways to make it earn much more than what govt give us at 2.5,4%

For cash prefer dividend paying UT and REIT. Not sure havent found dividend paying ETF yet. At our old age we prefer monthly dividend income over capital gain. Reason is if I sell for capital gain I need to find which to invest again very tiring research. With dividend I get some monthly allowance and yet still remain invested in the same UT, stocks.

Of cuz some investors prefer capital gain I get it. Different ppl different strategies. I do once in a while sell partial existing for capital gain but not so often.

Over the weekend, I have done some some research on ETF offered by FSM and my concerns below.

1. There are only a few dividend paying ETF for Spore. For the few I have found they are quarterly, half-yearly or annually and their dividend rate is even lower than UT with some stating irregular dividends.

2. Stocks/ ETFs bought using CPFIS-OA/SRS account are held with agent bank and not with CDP or FSMOne which means I cannot view from FSM portal must go to agent bank troublesome.

3. Per ETF buy or sell is 8.80 either way. This is cheap as I do invest in stocks before in SGX but if I do frequent buy/sell for capital gain it is expensive. Of cuz if capital gain is a lot it can easily cover this small fees.

4. RSP for ETF if do it ourselves incur 8.80 for each buy but FSM offer their unique feature of ETF RSP but minimum is 50 and can sell fractional lots.

Since my investment main criteria is to use CPFIS-OA/SA and cash for dividend paying, ETF don't fit my criteria so much. Argument that ETF low expense will reap much better returns is not always 100% true. I have found some UT that outperform the ETF for the past 21 years. The key is how to identify those funds. Besides I am seeing some new funds that is UT in nature but feeder fund to the ETF underlying. The expense ratio quite low too.

The long time argument of UT vs ETF never ends I guess. But for ppl looking for capital gain and low expense ratio ETF is indeed an attractive choice. For ppl looking for even quicker capital gain is to invest into the individual stocks directly but as all investment higher risk higher returns and also higher loss too.

Lastly, UT pricing nature means after work I can slowly place my buy,sell as in I am not so highly dependent on the timing unlike ETF,stocks where timing within the same trading day is super important to get the best price. I have tried stocks before and it is very taxing as I am also concurrently working. Overseas stock exchange stocks buy/sell and associated fees I have not tried yet btw.

I cannot edit my previous post so add a new reply. ETF supporters have been talking about expense ratio cheaper than UT etc for years. While I do not want to go to that I just want to highlight the fees levied by FSM for ETF and UT investment.

ETF
No platform fee
Each ETF buy/sell 8.80
Each ETF RSP Buy 0.08% (min 1)
Each ETF RSP Sell 0.08% (min 10)

Unit Trust Fund
0% sales charge for buy/sell, intra-buy/sell
Platform fee (charged every quarter)
Fixed Income Funds 0.05%
All Other Funds 0.0875% for first S$300,000. 0.05% for amount beyond S$300,000. Diamond Clients: 0% Platform Fee for Unit Trusts.

Just purely looking at the FSM fees structure I think ETF is not really so much cheaper than UT investment. In fact for UT if you can really reach Diamond tier it is 0%. The way I look at it, both ETF and UT fees are comparable but UT has a slight edge as in it is charged every quarter which means before the quarterly deduction triggered, your UT perform good it's returns would have helped to cover the platform fees. For ETF you incur charge for every single buy/sell even for RSP whereas RSP for UT is free.

Of cuz if one want to argue the performance of ETF vs UT that is another topic as above I am just talking about the FSM fee structure purely for both ETF and UT.

Conclusion. I think ETF is more closer to individual stock (in terms of their fees structure) than UT. It just happen ETF is a basket of stocks mirroring some index and ETF supporters saying it will perform better than UT due to lower expense fees etc.

My personal view is it is a factor but not the overall main dominating factor. Reason being typically for UT they do not just buy all the stocks that comprises of the index, if they do that then it is the same as ETF and yet they charge more fees? If that happen please just invest the ETF instead.

UT in order to outperform the index has the flexibility to invest in other stocks not inside the index and for some even invest in some high yielding bonds or other income generating instruments etc. This is why last time the some investor argument is UT is not an exact apple to apple comparison with ETF. UT need to do more work which translate to higher mgmt fees.

My past research indicates some UT typically follow 50-70% of the same stocks in the index. The remaining are in other stocks outside of the index and other investment stated above.

Again just to be fair to ETF supporters, there are quite a lot of under-performing UT throughout my 21 years of investing which can explain why ETF found many supporters over the years. The reason why I still have not entered ETF is in my earlier replies. CPF,dividend,fees criteria which maybe different for different investors. To also clarify, I have bought a few REIT aka dividend paying stocks just not ETF btw.

I think comparing ETF with UT is not a really apple to apple comparison. Perhaps ETF vs individual stock vs REIT stock is a closer comparison. They share the same fee structure each buy/sell pay fees, fractional aka odd lots selling etc.

I have checked the above please buy the ETF instead. Why does the UT charge higher fees where all they do is buy the stocks same as ETF ? The fund fact sheet updated Oct 2021. I suspect as the time goes by they may invest others like bonds etc else how can they outperform the ETF ?

I invest since 2000 the year FSM is launched. ETF is just like stock in SGX incur the same buy sell pay fees structure. But during my times each buy sell is 25++ per trade so 8.8 flat is good.

I am not sure if I can browse Malaysian based UT but in Spore based UT you can hold long term trust me. Let me give some fund house and you check on your end are they open for purchase. Bank managed fund sometimes not for sale to retail and their returns not so good maybe I dunno how to invest.

First Sentiers Group
Aberdeen
Schroders
Allianz
Lion Capital
Pinebridge
Fidelity
Nikko AM
JP Morgan
DWS Investment
Eastspring Investment
etc

Unlike stock, UT is really for medium to long term. You say not worth keeping for more than 3 years means the UT not performing well which I kena also. Try China India US in your allocation sure to have some returns no?

Avoid Spore,Msia,Indonesia,Thailand as single country. Their returns really low for the number of years I have held. If you want them find Asia Pacific UT which will include them together with other countries.