For PB and PM fund, it is very difficult to get discount from the service charges. But for others fund house, commission charges can go as low as 3% if sum of investment is big enough which depends on selling party to give (banks).

Bare in mind about your fonts, it is irritating to others, you might get warn because of it.

A friendly reminder.

Just fyi,

In forum, typing in bigger fonts or cap indirectly implied shouting at others.

We always welcome anyone to post/share information, idea, view etc.

Cheers.

Now, may be anytime is a good time to invest.

But it is defintely not (anytime is a good time) when market was high like last year or so. Ask those had invested in UT one, loss 30% considered very good already, a lot of them are suffering 50% of loss which might take more 3-5 years time frame before can reach breakeven points. Breakeven only, not yet counted the opportunity loss of FD interest over the years.

UT performance is as identical as equities market, a little bit of timing need to apply to achieve some good performance, otherwise it might poorer than FD as well.
You don't need to time precisiely, just little bit timing like stop investing or sell a bit when market had risen too much and market behaves not rationally time.

Bonds can be defaulted as well.

Also bond price can go up and down which depends on market condition like interest rate, default risk etc.
Bond price is sensitive to interest rate environmnet generally in normal market condition.

There is no guarantee you will be receiving the 5% yield as well due to the market risk nor it is stated in the prospectus.


Bonds generally carry some yield which more than interest rate or FD interest rate is offering but bonds is not as same as FD (FD is guaranteed) as bonds are not guaranteed by anyone, so one is exposed to default risk of the bond issuer. Bond default risk is depending on the bond issuer ability to repay the bond when maturity or servicing its bonds by paying the interest pre-set etc.

Don't mean this investment is not good or good. Just to highlight that one should know the details of it and having full understanding of it before investing.

Cheers.

Yes.

Generally bond fund charge about 1% ~ 1.5% initial service charges + annual management fee of 1%.

The problem is that those (7% or 5%) are projected return rate, it doesn't necessary it will, that's the risk of it.

Never trust the projected return, it holds no creditibility except through or just based on historical data to support it.

It could be negative or zero return or 2% or 6% etc.

Placement of deposit -> can be FD or short term deposit with banks

debenture - short term borrowing to company or finance instituition.

Money market fund is somehow like short term deposit with banks or borrow to financial instituition.

It is much better and apprpriate to explore yoruself about it instead waiting for people to put up recommendation.
Every funds targetting investment is different here and there. Find it yourself then pick which is more suit to you.

Cheers.

There is ex-date that any holders just before the ex-date is entitled to the distibution disregard when you bought the fund.

Please don't buy the fund for the sake of distribution announced, you earn nothing out of it.

No, this year we have several fund lose more than 50% until now.

UT is never or should be considered as 'safe' place in the first place. Yes, a lot of fund/equities can yield good return over the long term, but not all across are the same.

No matter how, need some minimal monitoring as well, cannot say totally ignore it at least must know what the fund is doing.

UT company are licensed and having BNM/SC approval and regulated by them.

Those scam is not. You have no protection at all in those company. <---- whatever clauses in your agreement with the company is useless.

Check with BNM/SC for your every single cent to put with investment house, every legitimate house from ordinary bank, brokers, investment bank has it.
No company can take in public deposit money without BNM/SC approval.

Yup, not to mention those balance fund (50% bond, 50% equity) charge the same 5% as same as 100% equity fund. By right, balance fund should (50% x 5% for normal equity fund) + (50% x 1% for bond portion), which should be 3% for balance fund out there.

Generally, yes and yes.

Fund managers have a mandate to invest up to 70% depended on the fund objective set in the trustee deed, so they generally work based on this guideline.

Fund managers cannot sit with full cash even they suspect market will crash (nobody knows), what they can do is shifting the % of cash in their portfolio.


1) Fixed income fund means the fund invested in some investment target that provide fixed income one like money market, corporate bonds etc which every year got fixed income expected to be getting one. No they don't pay fixed rate unless stated wise. Any return is based on fund performance.

Closed ended fund, means once the fund open offer is ended, then no more new fund is allowed to go in. All capital guaranteed fund is closed ended one due to nature of positioning of the fund to achieve capital guarantee objective.

2) It means when they sell the fund to you, they charge 3% on your invested amount for eg. you buy 10,000, with 3% charges, means you acutally invested 9700 only, not 10,000.

3) Target NAV means the fund is position and target for it. Details I don't know, need to read through the prospectus.

4) Yes.

5) Yes.

I came across a Pacific fund as well which stated 0% charge, but they charge higher annual management (2%) and any redeemption within 3 years will charge 1% accordingly.

So, it is not actually total 0%

The problem of current situation is that, bond performance generally inverse correlation with interest rate.

Those short term bond with AAA rating, the return is little different with FD rate generally, may be a notch 0.5-1% difference, after consider the service charge of 1% on bond fund and management fee, the return of those high quality bond could be as comparable with FD rate, so it makes little different by putting in FD.

Every fund nature and portfolio is different to another, so we can't say which company UT is better than the other.

It depends on the particular fund strategy, and focus of investment target.

Some into global quality stock, some into small cap etc.

Sometimes, it depends on the sector issue as well.
In different time, one sector may outperforms another due to economy reason and situation.

As we see even overall stock market has recovered quite a lot, but we still see a lot of global properties related fund are still registering significant loss of 30-50% loss across.

Frankly speaking a lot of new fund that launch prior before second half of 2008 are still registering losses aka below their initial NAV.

So timing is also an important factor as well.

So economy recovering you have
1) equity is a better place to be
2) interest rate is expected to raise so negative factor for bond

If economy has double dip
1) default risk on bond become higher, unless for those really high grade bond, but you won't get much return rate at the moment on those bond. Spread between them is low current as compared to FD rate.

Emerging countries bond risk could be higher than equities. So I prefer high quality equities with good dividend yield if the spread of those bond is low.

The risk reward ratio is not favourable or not worthwhile, my opinion only.

If those emerging bond is giving around 8% and maturity wise less than 5-6 years, I would say the risk reward ratio is quite fair and ok.

Those are not considered high grade bond, those around BBB grade bond (except Korean) only which history wise got a few number of BBB grade default as well if look back.
Lower than BBB, some consider junk bond already.

Anyway there is no right or wrong, it depended on individual risk appetite and needs/preference.

But be prepare for a number of year, bond won't have good performance compared to others, which is a more realistic expectation. Still it could be better than FD if there is no default risk.