low charges and fees are good, but it is also important that the funds perform - maybe they will offer UT that will feed into other funds, because I don't think tune money can attract established fund managers

may i ask normally how long it takes to get the unit trust cert ? mine already 1 week plus but not yet arrived. 

another question, if the maturity date had pass and i did not go and collect my money. i only go collect after 4months later, will my money still collectable or i should go and collect my money on the spot at the maturity date ??  thx

Most probably you can get it in 2-3week time.

What maturity you're talking about? Unit trust has no maturity date.

maturity date means . u must put ur money in let say 1 and a half year be4 u can withdraw it . 

also what is the means of capital protected. let say i put 5k means i will get back my 5k at least ? is it ? thx

Currently there are several kind of fund out there

1. Normal or convetional type of UT, no time frame, invest in equities or bond.

2. Structured fund/capital guaranteed fund, got time frame usually 1,3 5 years. Typical example woould be like Amasian foreign currency capital protected fund, Hwang-DSB capital guaranteed fund etc. The method they used to achieve capital guaranteed, I had posted before. Some are into some derivaties market for leverage etc. But due to less portion of the fund is exposed in equities in capital guaranteed fund, so expect less return rate compared to normal fund for the like to like comparison.

hey bro , i have some questions need ur help to clear up for me. that means i will get back 5k if i invented 5k ? for the capital guaranteed fund ? Like the Amasian Currency and etc ? thx. and also is it the must for me to redeem the cash on the maturity date or i can redeem it later. thx

If it's a capital guaranteed fund, your capital is protected. Means, if you invest 5k, at least you can get back your 5k after maturity.

Only capital guaranteed funds have certain maturity date, and other funds don't actually have maturity date. When it's matured, I think unit trust company will send you a cheque. So, you do not need to redeem it at that time. When maturity, it should be automatically redeemed. (Correct me if Im wrong)

Normally, capital guaranteed funds may have lower return than others, as they need to invest in some fixed income securities which can secure at least your capital.

David83,

You still do not get it.  Let's take a fund, 10 years total return of 82%.  So average return is 8.2% per year.  Is this good??  Do you know how to calculate??

A) Assuming initial charge of 5%, so actual total return is

0.95 * 1.82 = 0.78 = 73%

B) Real financial people do not talk about average return.  They talk about compounded return.  Money earns annual compounded interest.

(1.056 ^ 10) = 1.073

So, 78% over 10 year is equal to 5.6% of annual compounded return.

Let's take our lowly FD and check what is the total return over 10 years with 3.7%.  Please note that no initial charge for buying FD.

1.037^10 = 1.438.  So, total return for FD is 43.8%.

The number should be much much higher because FD interest is much much more than 3.7% over the past 10 years. 

KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE!!!

Dreamer

Why wait?  Malaysian can open an US stock brokerage A/C with e-trade and buy ETF.  For USD 1K, the cost of trading is 1% and most ETF annual maintenance fee is 0.5% or less.  With this approach, you can buy index fund to cover the whole world at very low cost.

Dreamer

<<there is no free lunch in this world...>>

This statement is true.  If people do not to learn and study about investment, they will lose their money easily.

As I usually said, if you do not want to learn, stay in FD.

Dreamer

E-trade might file for bancruptcy... big news in the US now... so beware.

I think 1997 is not a true economy recession. It only affected South Korea, and SEA. Someone decided he wanted to play GOD role in developing countries.

Regarding unit trust, I think that depends on which unit trust and what are they investing in. Unit trust a bit like IPO as well. Cheap when new but as it matured, return will be much lesser than when it started new. Ppl regard UT as a long term investment.

abcdefcuk , probably you can point your question to Dreamer at this thread.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/488747/