BuzzLife

I was surprised to read about Pak Lah telling EPF to impose more stingent terms and condition for salaried men and women to withdraw their EPF funds to invest in unit trust funds. I was even more surprised that Pak Lah announced that 80% of funds withdrawn from EPF for investment in unit trust incurred losses. I have no clue at all how accurate is the statement as reported in the mainstream media. But today, the experts dispute these "facts", calling for further verification of the so-called 80% loss before it causes any losses to this billion dollar industry.

I have always been very interested in the share market and unit trusts industry. Having done a lot of research and study on this subject in the past and an avid reader of business magazine Personal Money and the Edge business newspaper, I couldn’t resist to chip in my two cents (worth?) on the recent outcry of these issues in the blogosphere.

My own experiences
I have been investing in unit trust using my EPF funds and my own savings for a long, long time, with my 2 Js as joint account holders. All I can say is I have been getting reasonably good returns, at least better than EPF dividends (4.75% in 2004, 5% in 2005) or for that matter, better than Fixed Deposit Interest Rate, averagely 3.5%. One may argue that probably timing was right/perfect when I put in my investment. But a professional unit trust agent once told me that there is never a right or wrong time to invest, it is how you implement the best practices to max out your returns and reduce the potential risk. And I did that.

I diversify my investment, 70% in equity funds and 30% in bond and money market funds and spread out among a few companies, Public Mutual, SBB and the Government owned PNB (Amanah Saham Malaysia for non-bumiputra). To date, if I average out the returns I am getting from all these investment, I am getting about an annual returns of 8%.