Why take EPF money to dabble? It's a safety net.

There is always PRS, suppose to be EPF back-up plan. From my experience, if not for the savings on income tax, I would stay far away from PRS.

i do agree with you. there are so many good funds to choose from asides those from PRS.

You are clueless, and his unit trusts have been underperforming.

Perfect reasons to keep in EPF.

(and give him a kick in the butt, but that's optional).

Been invested in public unit trust for 5 years with monthly top up, even bought the newly launched fund with extra 1% unit. But sadly since day 1 losing money. The launch price is RM0.25 and continue dropping till RM0.1x.after 5 years. In the end I gave up and withdraw with net loss few k not counting the interest if put into bank. Most money paid as mgmt fee only

Check out EPF making unrealised loss of 1.4bil in 2018, also negative reserve of 9bil in 2018. Donno why EPF yet to publish their 2019 report, I bet the loss and reverse might be even greater.



https://www.kwsp.gov.my/documents/20126/974...t=1564377639847

EPF declares stable dividends every year. When they perform well, they will keep the remaining profits so that future years can still declare. This time around market has only performed well in 1 out of the past 5 years, until the reserve also become negative. Why EPF can declare 5% dividend in 2019 while Tabung Haji cannot? Not to worry as EPF has guaranteed dividend 2.5%, but donno where they will get the money.

EPF recently (commenced this month) lowered fee to transfer to Unit Trust via i invest at 0% fee (before was 0.5%) and through agent to 1.5% (before was 3%). Not sure why EPF giving such an incentive right now?

Making profit or loss depend on when you transferred (if you had transferred 15 years ago, UT might have outperformed EPF. if 5 years ago, most likely it is loss)

There are few cases where transfer from EPF to unit trust might work:
-If you can predict future market performance (if you think market will gain higher than epf 5% can also able to cover fee of 0%-1.5%)
-To reallocate between equity and bond (EPF is roughly 50% equity 50% bond, switching to unit trust can let you allocate higher portion to either which one you want more)
-To reallocate diversify to specific country market

This post has been edited by cxjiek: May 15 2020, 10:24 PM

that was ending Dec 2018....1 year later they can still gives 5.45% dividend rate for year 2019...

No not worth it, the benefits you gain from EPF are way more than what you risk in mutual funds. I am not against investing in unit trust, in fact I made quite a handsome returns from them. However, EPF is your retirement fund hence, preserving and protecting your funds is the priority. It is your golden nest eggs

most people get to know of unit trust through Public Mutual. PM doesn't have a lot of good funds to choose from. you can open an account and waive agent commission through eUnitTrust or FSM. im from Phillip eUnitTrust btw. if you still wanna have a portion of your portfolio in UT and will like choose from more than 30 fund houses, you can deposit investment fund yourself. eUnitTrust/FSM is suitable for you then.

yes agree with you. some agents advise clients to invest from EPF is because clients will mostly agree since they do not need to fork out money from their pocket. really sad to see this, i have a client whom has less than 10 years to retire, invest into a bad performing china equity fund from PM... regretted his decision.

Now I'm no accountant. But I believe those numbers you are seeing are the effects of EPF switching to MFRS9 accounting standard in 2018. You can see that the main reason why the reserves and the total comprehensive income became negative is due to a revaluation of their equity assets from using AFS to FVOCI. MFRS9 includes some kind of impairment provision into the revaluation if I'm not mistaken, hence dragging down the revaluation.

If you look at their statement of P&L, it is still healthy. Retained Profits increased from RM 3.8 bil to RM 5.2 bil. Meaning their investment activities are still sound.



As to why so long 2019 not out, I don't know. But EPF is not alone. Pretty much all the government bodies have yet to release their 2019 annual report.

This post has been edited by Eurobeater: May 20 2020, 01:33 PM

Don't withdraw EPF funds to buy UTs.
Keep it in EPF.

Yes, but the real purpose of PRS is not make sure you contribute diligently for a period of time, force investing.

Don't do it if you don't know what you are doing.

My personal opinion is that taking EPF (which almost guarantee you minimum 5-6% return) and putting it into Unit Trust is totally not a best move.

Like earlier someone mentioned, a lot of those friends as agent will tell you take your EPF out and invest into those Equity funds, it can generate 18% - 40% return from what you see in the past. Then you don't need to take out your own money (Cash) so you wont feel you are losing out. In fact, when you withdraw EPF and invest into UT, last time usually invest using EPF will have 3% sales charge for those growth fund, which means before your investment start to make money for you, you got penalised to pay commission to the company and your friend by paying 3%. To earn back this 3% is not like this year up 3% then you gain back, you need it to up at least 3.5% just to breakeven. Dont forget about your EPF return that give u 5-6% returns.

I am not saying Unit Trust is not a good investment tools, but just now using your EPF. Invest your cash or savings and understand the type of Uint Trust. A lot of agents out there introduce you Unit Trust which is growth fund (high risk) and comes with high sales charge and management fee. It is suitable to you? Not necessary, but is suitable to your friend because he can earn commission. I am not blaming the agents, they are finding a living too, but you must understand your own risk appetite and investment horizon (short term, long term) and the liquidity of your cash.

Hope it helps explain your concern.

It depends, if u are familiar with investimg through the stock market or unit trust, i believe you are also familiar with the risk.

I actually started to invest in unit trust via epf i-invest around 2 month ago. I also invest in the stock market and unit trust directly and aware of the risk. I also control my exposure by allowing only a certain percentage in the unit trust. I also have managed to earn roughly 3x of the 2019 dividend ( percentage wise for the amount invested) for this short period.

Please do not follow the advise of unit trust agent, learn about investing yourself and get familiar with all the charges involved. By the way all sales charge for EPF MIS through i-invest is 0%. The one who tell you otherwise is just not updated and the previous sales charge coupled with listening to their agent without any understanding of investment caused a lot of people to get burned.

This post has been edited by backspace66: May 20 2020, 05:13 PM

The only person making money here is your ‘friend’

It is about averaging monthly..If u not consistent..better dont..

I initially invested some elf money into mutual fund through investment agent. This year, I asked whether got any difference if I invest directly through I-invest, he said cannot, EPF withdrawal can only be done through thumb print using agent's help... is he BS me? do I need to do thumb print withdrawal with I-invest website?

iInvest needs to have existing account from supporting platforms: FSM, eUT, PM, Principal, etc
Otherwise, you have to it the manual way.

Example 1: If you select a fund from Principal


Example 2: If you select a fund from Kenanga


Best way is to have/open an account with FSM (iFast) or eUT (Philip Mutual)

This post has been edited by GrumpyNooby: Dec 2 2020, 05:29 PM

Ive always wanted to withdraw my epf and putting it into UT

But after reading this thread, am glad i didnt

Why glad that you didn't?