Hi, please mind your language in public forums
The company did in fact sent out email informing the ACTIVE agents about the change of forms.
Actually, you can't blame the company in this case, because you did not take the initiative to find out what is happening. You did not bother to know what is happening.

I hope I do not start a flame by stating the facts

There is no great significance, because those were for the past quarter (ie 2008Q1).
It is done to have a better transparency basically, so that investors know at least what their funds are holding.
It is also a requirement by SC that the portfolio be exposed in the annual reports for each funds.
The main reason consultants show this is to give investors the confidence because they know what they're investing in.
But as I said, those holdings were for the previous quarter, so things change after the reports were printed.
So all in all, they're kind of "Sejarah" type of thing for us

leekk8, sorry if my previous post sounded offensive. I was just explaining to David the reason this data is published.
I do agree with what you're saying in the first sentence of your post. Not many investors will fully understand unit trust, because a lot of them just rely on their agents for information and recommendations. That is where agents get their money
I apologise for not using the proper wordings, as I was just trying to get my opinion through.

http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...l=public+mutual

Please post everything related to Public Mutual here.
Where did you get the information that agents "need" to recruit every year? Is it something new that I have not heard of?

Well, as an upline myself, I also hope all my downlines can grow their business and be successful, but we know there is NOTHING we can do to force anyone. Success is determined ONLY by yourself. Failing to plan is planning to fail, so make sure before you embark on any business, make sure you plan on your journey.
Also, as a recruiter, I think your friend is somewhat too "fresh" in this business. So, depending only on him might be a problem as well. I suggest that you find out who his immediate upline is, and try to learn as much from him/her (if his upline is experienced).
If you want to be a professional consultant, you must have the right knowledge from the right people. Impression is important, and if you strike it right, recruit or not is yet another question.

Yes I have heard of CUTA. You will need to be a qualified FP to set up a CUTA.
Each CUTA should consists of at least 2 qualified FP to start the business.
Well, it is good especially when you have the qualifications, people would tend to trust you more.
Since you are not tied to just one company, you can get a larger customer base for different companies.

This post has been edited by Jordy: Jul 2 2008, 08:44 AM

If I remember correctly, CUTA is not eligible to do recruitment. They have the responsibility to advise the clients themselves.
Since you have CFP, then you could get another CFP to jointly set up a CUTA.
I read about the seminar too just recently in The Star. Not a bad seminar I should say.
Anyway, maybe you could set up a small financial planning firm to get some income?
At times like this where inflation is on the rise, a lot of people would need such services.

I would like to state my opinion here, if you don't mind me quoting you
The fund should be investing in established telco and construction corporations in the Far East.
One example of this is China Mobile, CCCC or China Railway.
The advantage of this is that these corporations have the infrastructure and service in place, and they are growing.
So, investing in these corporations would mean getting fruits from the matured trees.
Telco companies don't really need a lot of capex once their infrastructure is completed, but just need maintenance expenses.
So, they have the ability to pay out high dividend in good times or expand their businesses in bad times.

This is my 2 cents on this fund, and a brief run-through of the fund gave me a good impression.
I still have yet to go deep into the details, but there is still time for it now

You might be right on the 3G and steel part, but as I said I still have yet to go into so much details
I just returned from outstation and just got to know about this fund from newspaper today
The fund might be a good hedge against inflation as it invests in basic materials as well.
Telco in China might be losing money in 3G, but they are gaining more from the 2G or 2.5G.
Unless 3G get more subsribers, or we will not see any huge growth in profits from telcos.
What we can bet on is stable income from these telco giants

Well, what we're saying is that from now up to the next 10 years, we could still see increasing number of phone users. So, there is still opportunity for a "short" long term investment into telco. The only worry is that with the earthquake in Sichuan, telcos there might need to spend some chunk of money to rebuild the lost infrastructures there.

Just my 2 cents for discussion purposes.

This scenario is common wherever you go, not only Public Mutual. Try investing in other unit trust houses, they are still the same. It is a global problem, so it is unfair to put Public Mutual into blame.

Timing is very important when investing. The market has been in a bull run from 2005-2007, so you have invested during the peak. Late last year, the market globally crashed because of US subprime. Public Mutual has nothing to do with it and cannot do anything but just to keep the portfolio.

Launching new fund doesn't mean they will just leave the old fund. They launched new fund to get a new set of portfolio and to buy more stocks at times like this. It is wise to launch more funds during market downturn than launching more funds during a bull run.

By the way, you have invested in Public China Ittikal Fund if I am not mistaken. China is too risky last year as the market has been booming the most, almost 100% in a year. So, it has become a bubble waiting to burst. When the US subprime emerged, obviously China market will be badly hit, thus making the largest lost. Who is to be blamed? Speculators that have been pushing up the market there and dumping the shares when glabal crisis arises.

This post has been edited by Jordy: Jul 10 2008, 10:25 AM

Yeah, that is right. The first is PB Capital Protected Dragon Fund (PBCPDF).
So it is one for PB and one for Public

Cool, I am going into PBOND on Monday.
Looks like the ex price would be below RM0.90

PBOND has been launched earlier, so there's a track record at least.
PBOND is conventional bond, so it can have PB's bond in its portfolio.
That should stabilise the fund a bit more in the long run.

Not really, if you see PBOND's historical returns, it has been well above 5% for 8 years, with the exception of 2004 and 2006, which were just below 3%. PB's bond has 2 tenures, the first will expire in 2016 and the second in 2036. RHB Capital's bond will last to 2011 with a coupon rate of 7.20%, and Malakoff Corporation's tenure will expire in 2022 with coupon rate of 6.68%.

Past performance is no indication of the future, that is true for equity. Bond funds are generally safer investments, which do not really give a negative return because of the coupons. It gives some degree of secutiry, unless for troubled companies like Transmile, which would then default on the payment. If there is no default, then bond is still relatively safe. For the 3 companies I mentioned just now, they are quite stable companies, namely PB, RHB Capital and Malakoff.

No doubt that equity could outperform bonds in the longer term, but the volatility of equity makes it very much riskier than bonds, thus making that slight outperformance not really worth it. Lets take a look at some of the strongest fund and compare.

10-years period (Annualised):

Public Savings Fund - 10%
Public Growth Fund - 10%
Public Index Fund - 9.6%
Public Aggressive Growth Fund - 11%
Public Industry Fund - 10.5%
Public Regular Savings Fund - 10%
Public Ittikal Fund (Best performer) - 12.5%

Against Public Bond Fund 10-year annualised - 8.5%

So as you can see, all the other equity funds have just outperformed PBOND by only 2% - 3%, but their risks are MUCH higher compared to bonds.
Since we are in a very volatile market situation now, most of the funds have been dropping by 20% - 30% from their highs, compared to PBOND's 3% drop. The returns are relatively lower compared to the risks, unless of course if we see another bull run like in 2007, but I doubt we would be seeing that in the next 5 years.

"if you look at the performance over the past 10 years, it has never dropped like it has done over the past month or so"

Perhaps it has never dropped around 3% - 4% before in its 12 years of launch, but it did drop quite significantly in the years 2003 and 2006, but after these huge drops, it made some hefty gains as well. I do not deny the fact that the fund has been more volatile these few months, but it should not drop that much, unless something is really wrong with those bond issuers.

Well, I hope I did not confuse you or anyone else with my explaination. I am not very good at explaining these bonds stuffs though
Anyway, this is just my 2 cents worth, and I aware that I bear my own risks with this fund Just a sharing of what I thought.

Bro, that is where you do not really understand investment. The greatest measure in calculating investment returns is its annual COMPOUNDING returns. What you just shown there were simple returns. Another question though, do you see more volatility in equity markets in the coming months (or years), or less volatility?

To make a simple comparison again, lets take a look at the total returns for the funds mentioned for the past 1 year:

Public Savings Fund: -8.4%
Public Growth Fund: -7.8%
Public Index Fund: -13%
Public Aggressive Growth Fund: -9.3%
Public Industry Fund: -16.8%
Public Regular Savings Fund: -9.5%
Public Ittikal Fund (Best performer) - 12.5%

Against Public Bond Fund 10-year annualised: -1.2%

It is clear that PBOND is still able to hold itself amid such high volatility period while most equity funds are in deeper negative figures. I never denied that bond funds can have negative returns as well, but for 12 years since PBOND has been launched, I am proud to say that it has NEVER made any negative returns for the full financial year. But please be reminded that past performance is not an indication of future performances, but such a track record has quite proven that bond funds will hold up over the long term, although a little less return than equity funds

For your information, PBOND is the only bond fund that I am investing into for the moment, and I still have my other equity funds. This is just for diversification purpose to lower my risk exposure in unit trust though Not everyone can be fully invested in equity funds at situations like this and still expect for positive returns. I am not making any assurance or guarantee, but I am just sharing for discussion purpose.

howszat,
Prior to 2007, how were equity funds faring? Lets take a look and compare PAGF and PBOND.

Period from 5 August 1996 - 3 August 2006

PAGF - 37%
PBOND - 130.5%

Your numbers shown earlier were taking into account the "super" bull in 2007. Since this was an "exceptional" case, we should not take this period into consideration. So I took the numbers from 1996 to 2006, which should roughly reflect our current market situation. The most recent "super" bulls happened in 1993, and then only happened about 14 years later in end-2006. We would not see another run like this until at least the next decade.

Hence, it is only fair if we take a period that reflects our current market to compare. Now we do not see a catalyst that would trigger such "super" bull in these 5 years period. So do you still think equity funds would still make returns like those in 2007?

"My UT consultant tells me to take a long term view when it comes to equites, and not just look at the past 1 year. Your consulting advice wherever it came from must be telling you something different."

All consultants would say the similar stuff. This is the "marketing hype". Why was I looking at the past one year? I was just responding to your earlier statement that "they are currently showing negative returns for the past year". Again, I did not deny the fact that bond funds can make negative returns too, but in a slow market like now, I am just showing you that the negative returns on equity funds are even more. Would you rather see a return of -3% or a return of -15% in your portfolio? I think a lot would agree that we would not see a strong recovery in our market for the next 2-3 years. For this period of time, it would be "enough" for bond funds to outperform equity funds.

"Hey, ultimately it is up to each individual to make up their own mind. Good luck with your investments"

You are so right bro and thank you. By the way, it would not harm to have a bond fund in your portfolio as well to act as a "cushion". Please do not just follow the words of your consultant, because ALL consultants would want to push equity funds more than bond funds because the difference in commission is 10x. This is just my honest advice to you

"Past performance is no indication of future performance"

That is correct, so whatever outperforming returns for equity funds you showed might not happen again, so who knows, maybe we would see bond funds outperforming equity funds for the coming 2-3 years?

"Would you rather see a return of +3.7% (in FD) or a return of -3% in your portfolio?"

I think we're discussing about equity funds and bond funds? Hehe.

"I do take your previous points about bond funds, and how they have a role to play in an individual's portfolio"

Yeah, that is good. So as this is my FIRST bond fund, I am glad to have it in my portfolio as my "cushion".

And lastly,
"blardy consultants"

I am a consultant *gulp*

Latest price on PBOND after distribution. There is a sudden rise from 0.8992 to 0.9001 (+0.10%).
Now, I think the bond market is suddenly getting attention with equity turned bearish.
One main concern on PBOND's portfolio is Malakoff. I hope the windfall tax does not affect its ability to pay up the bondholders
I am still waiting for PBOND's latest annual report so that I could make better evaluation of the portfolio. Still have to wait.