Posted by tptan45 > 2012-12-15 23:09 | Report Abuse

Unit trusts are rubbish, trust me. I was fooled once by their seemingly professional approach, know all attitude and glossy prospectus.
But since last year, my own investments has gained more than 50%(with minimal effort) while the unit trust in the hands of so called professionals has gone into the red.
I am in the process of pulling them all out.
Lesson learned.

Posted by jester > 2012-12-15 23:15 | Report Abuse

Thanks for sharing!

I agree with u. Unit Trust have lots of charges.
It's better to do the investing work urselves.

However, it is not all bad. For those who have so little time in doing research on stocks and markets, Unit Trust may be the best investment vehicle for them.

Just my amateur opinion.

Thanks.

Posted by yfchong > 2012-12-15 23:23 | Report Abuse

Not all unit trust are giving good returns, some of it might be red color, n the best utc call is average down......... But not define the time ............ They r just salesman or sales person only equipped with so called CF planner, what do they plan in also not sure, best part is they cab say the proposed fund is XX growth but discounted the time frame n initial charges puzzled at times I need to remind them,............... Most of the times misleading.............

Posted by Brien Chia Zi Hao > 2012-12-16 00:15 | Report Abuse

@tptan45 What do you mean by limited effort. and 50% gain, in a market that went up about 14%? Green hits all the way? wow.

@yfchong Yes, most of the time UTC are misleading...because actually most of them are uneducated and without appropriate financial knowledge to give sound advice.

But if investing like say Rm100-300 a month, calculated fees actually cheaper than stock market. and there's that liquidity thing also.

I I had the cash to invest RM1000-3000 a month, then I would do it directly on the stock market.

Anyways, Dollar Cost averaging that they talk about so much, also works for shares. :)

A tip with you unit trust: buy in a week before the dividend. It will negate some of the effect of the service charge. And ask your UTC for a rebate!

Posted by tptan45 > 2012-12-16 13:03 | Report Abuse

I usually spend less than 10 minutes researching a stock. I don't spend any money on super software (google is the best). I don't lose sleep over Dow, Nikkei, Europe etc. That's minimal effort.

BTW online brokerage charges are usually less than RM 10 per transaction. That's cheaper than unit trust charges.

I go against the common unit trust idiocy of diversification. Diversification is just a method by the fund managers to cover their own weaknesses.

Posted by benson911 > 2012-12-16 13:22 | Report Abuse

Unit trust dpend on timing also, if u enter at peak, chance to earn more is less. I enter when price is depress and when KLCI is almsot in peak,i will shift my fund ( only cost Rm25) to sukuk/ bond fund as way to preserve my money.

Posted by Brien Chia Zi Hao > 2012-12-16 17:25 | Report Abuse

@tptan45 what have you made so far, from how much capital, over how long? I've yet to make money from individual stocks, due to the problems stated in the article, but have made significant amounts from unit trust.

@beson911 actually UTC supposed to advise when to do that i think. And unit trust people always say don't time the market??? strange.