MELABUR MELALUI EPF - PANDUAN KEPADA AHLI KELAYAKAN PELABURAN DI BAWAH PENGELUARAN PELABURAN AHLI

1.0 PENGENALAN
Mulai 1 November 2007, KWSP telah melaksanakan beberapa pembaharuan dalam SKIM KWSP secara berperingkat di bawah inisiatif strategik 'Bukan Hanya Simpanan' seperti mana yang diperuntukkan di bawah Akta KWSP 1991 (pindaan 2007). Ini termasuklah inisiatif untuk memperkenalkan Simpanan Asas bagi menentukan amaun yang layak dilaburkan oleh ahli daripada Akaun 1 di bawah Pengeluaran Pelaburan Ahli (PPA)

2.0 DEFINISI SIMPANAN ASAS
Simpanan Asas ialah satu jumlah simpanan dalam Akaun 1 yang ditetapkan mengikut umur bagi membolehkan ahli memperoleh simpanan sekurang-kurangnya RM120,000 pada umur 55 tahun. Ahli boleh melaburkan simpanan dalam Akaun 1 yang melebihi simpanan asas dalam produk dan menerusi insititusi pelaburan yang diluluskan oleh Menteri Kewangan.






3.0 SYARAT-SYARAT YANG DITETAPKAN

3.1 Mulai 1 Februari 2008 , ahli boleh melaburkan simpanan di bawah PPA tidak melebihi 20% daripada jumlah simpanan yang melebihi Simpanan Asas dalam Akaun 1.
3.2 Pelaburan ini boleh dibuat setiap 3 bulan sekali dan jumlah minimum pelaburan ialah RM1,000.00.
3.3 Jumlah Simpanan Asas dan contoh pengiraan adalah seperti di LAMPIRAN.
3.4 Syarat-syarat am prosedur di bawah Pengeluaran Pelaburan Ahli yang lain masih kekal dan tidak berubah.

Contoh pengiraan

Selamat Hari Raya AidilFitri

Dear Valued Clients and Prospects,

Dikesempatan ini kami ingin mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya AidilFitri Maaf Zahir dan Batin.

Salam tulus ikhlas dari kami sekeluarga....
Salleh
Rabita
Alyaa Zahirah




Best Regards,
Rabita Yusoff

"Help your loved ones to start investing/saving early and wisely"

Dollar Cost Averaging - A Technique that Drastically Reduces Market Risk - By Joshua Kennon, About.com

Dollar cost averaging is a technique designed to reduce market risk through the systematic purchase of securities at predetermined intervals and set amounts. Many successful investors already practice without realizing it. Many others could save themselves a lot of time, effort and money by beginning a plan. In this article, you will learn the three steps to beginning a dollar cost averaging plan, look at concrete examples of how it can lower an investor’s cost basis, and discover how it reduces risk.

Dollar Cost Averaging: What is It?


Instead of investing assets in a lump sum, the investor works his way into a position by slowly buying smaller amounts over a longer period of time. This spreads the cost basis out over several years, providing insulation against changes in market price.

Setting Up Your Own Dollar Cost Averaging Plan


In order to begin a dollar cost averaging plan, you must do three things:

1. Decide exactly how much money you can invest each month. Make certain that you are financially capable of keeping the amount consistent; otherwise the plan will not be as effective.

2. Select an investment (index funds are particularly appropriate, but we will get to that in a moment) that you want to hold for the long term, preferably five to ten years or longer.


3. At regular intervals (weekly, monthly or quarterly works best), invest that money into the security you’ve chosen. If your broker offers it, set up an automatic withdrawal plan so the process becomes automated.

An Example of a Dollar Cost Averaging Plan


You have $15,000 you want to invest in Sprint FON common stock. The date is January 1, 2000. You have two options: you can invest the money as a lump sum now, walk away and forget about it, or you can set up a dollar cost averaging plan and ease your way into the stock. You opt for the latter and decide to invest $1,250 each quarter for three years. (See chart for math of dollar cost averaging plan.)

Had you invested your $15,000 in January 2000, you would have purchased 264.46 shares at $56.72 each. When the stock closed for the year in December of 2002 at $13.69, your holdings would only be worth $3,620!

Had you dollar cost averaged into the stock over the past three years, however, you would own 746.21 shares; at the closing price, this gives your holdings a market value of $10,216. Although still a loss, Sprint FON stock must only go up to $20.10 for you to break even, not $56.72, which would have been required without the dollar cost averaging.

To go a step further, without dollar cost averaging you would break even at $56.72. With dollar cost averaging, you would have turned a profit of $27,326 when the stock hit that price thanks to your lower cost basis ($56.72 sell price - $20.10 average cost basis = $36.62 profit x 746.21 shares = $27,326 total profit.)

Combining the Power of Dollar Cost Averaging with the Diversification of a Mutual Fund


Index funds are passively managed mutual funds that are designed to mimic the returns of benchmarks such as the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, etc. An investor that puts money into a fund designed to mimic the Wilshire 5000, for example, is literally going to own a fractional interest in every one of the five thousand stocks that make up that index. This instant diversification comes with the added bonus. Traditionally, management fees of passive funds are less than one-tenth those of their actively managed counterparts. Over the course of a decade, for example, this can add up to tens of thousands of dollars the investor would have paid in fees to the mutual fund company that, instead, are accruing to his or her benefit.

The dollar cost averaging component reduces market risk, while the index fund investment reduces company-specific risk. This combination can be among the best investment options for individuals looking to build up their long term wealth by having a portion of their portfolio in equities.

Table 1: Sprint FON with Dollar Cost Averaging Plan



Source: http://beginnersinvest.about.com/cs/newinvestors/a/041901a.htm

Market Commentary for the week ended 19 September 2008

STOCKMARKET COMMENTARY

The sell-down of global and regional markets following the U.S. financial crisis caused the KLCI to fall below 1,000 points for the first time in two years on Thursday. However, buying of index stocks helped the KLCI to close at 1,025.7 points and register a decline of 1.8% for the week.

Average daily trading volume increased to 0.4 billion units from 0.3 billion units over the week while average trading value rose to RM1 billion from RM0.8 billion in the preceding week.

On Wall Street, the Dow fell to a 34-month low of 10,459 points on Wednesday following the solvency crisis of major U.S. financial institutions. However, share prices recovered on Thursday and Friday after the U.S. government unveiled plans to spend up to US$700 billion to buy troubled mortgage-related assets. The Dow closed 0.3% lower at 11,388 points for the week. The Nasdaq was 0.6% higher at 2,274 points over the week.

At the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on 16th September 2008, the Federal Reserve kept the Federal funds rate unchanged at 2% and expressed its concerns over slower economic growth and elevated inflationary expectations. Lower energy prices helped the U.S. inflation rate to ease to 5.4% in August from 5.6% in July while the core inflation rate was sustained at 2.5% over the same period. U.S. housing starts contracted by 6.2% month-on-month to a 17-year low of 895,000 units in August after a decline of 12.4% in July.

After easing to a 7-month low of US$91.15/brl on Tuesday, crude oil prices rebounded to register a weekly gain of 3.3% at US$104.55/brl on concerns over supply disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico.

On the local front, the Ringgit strengthened marginally by 0.2% against the U.S. dollar to close at RM3.342 for the week. On a year-to-date basis, the Ringgit depreciated by 3.6% against the greenback.

Looking ahead, the local market is anticipated to continue moving in tandem with overseas markets over the near term. Investors will continue to monitor the outlook for commodity prices, economic growth and interest rates.

At the KLCI’s closing level of 1,025.70 points on 19th September 2008, the local stock market is valued at a P/E of 12.3x on 2008 earnings which is at a discount of 27% to its 8-year average of 16.9x. The market is also supported by a gross dividend yield of 5.8% which compares favourably to Ringgit fixed deposit rates for tenures of less than one year.

REGIONAL STOCKMARKET COMMENTARY

For the week ended 19th September, the Hang Seng China Enterprise Index (HSCEI) fell below 9,000 points on Thursday in tandem with global equity markets. However, the Chinese government’s plans to remove the stamp duty on stock purchases coupled with the purchase of stakes in China’s three largest banks helped the HSCEI to rebound and recoup its earlier losses.

South-East Asian markets closed on a cautious note despite the rebound in share prices later in the week. The Thai market fell by 4.5% while the Philippines market closed 6.9% lower for the week.

The People’s Bank of China reduced the one-year base lending rate for the first time in 6 years by 27 basis points to 7.2% and lowered the reserve requirement ratio by 100 basis points to 16.5% for small and medium-sized banks on 15th September to encourage credit growth and reduce tight monetary conditions.

Singapore’s retail sales growth rebounded strongly to a 13-month high of 11.8% in July after declining by 3.4% in June on higher consumer spending on vehicles and gasoline. Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports declined further by 13.8% in August after contracting by 5.8% in July due to lower electronics and pharmaceutical exports.

The near term outlook for regional equity markets will continue to depend on the trend in oil prices, the interest rate cycle in each respective market and the outlook for U.S. economic growth, interest rates and developments in the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market. However, following the retracement in regional share prices in recent weeks, the valuations of several regional markets are now below their historical averages.

http://www.publicmutual.com.my/article.aspx?id=6731

KLCI - 20080925

Market Commentary
25 September 2008

The local bourse closed 2.22 points or 0.22% higher at 1028.40 points after rebounding on news of the revised petrol price and last minute profit-taking activities on selected heavyweights. Top leaders were MISC (+15 sen to RM8.45), BCHB (+15 sen to RM8.00) and Tenaga (+10 sen to RM7.00). Top laggards were DIGI (-50 sen to RM22.10), IOI Corp (-6 sen to RM 4.50) and Telekom (-10 sen to RM3.22). Market breadth remained positive with 335 advancers outpacing 205 decliners. However, volume increased to 450m shares worth RM0.73b from Tuesday's 336m shares worth RM0.73b.

Source: JF Apex Securities Bhd

The Star - Wednesday September 24, 2008 - Are you ready for this downcycle?

The five phases of stock market cycles and where we are now

AS a result of the recent financial crisis in companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers as well as AIG, investors have been wondering whether there will be more companies affected by this crisis.

George Soros, in his book published in the early 2008 titled The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means, said that “ .... the current crisis is not merely the bursting of the housing bubble. It is bigger than the periodic financial crises we have experienced in our lifetime.”

According to him, we should expect the current situation to get worse before it can get better.
Hence, investors need to prepare themselves for this downturn. Even though nobody will know exactly when the market will recover again, we must be ready when the market moves.

In order to do that, we need to understand stock market cycles and where we are now.

Stock market cycles can be divided into five phases €“ expansion, settlement, contraction, crisis and recovery.

During expansion, the overall stock market sentiment will be bullish with higher stock market volume and prices.

In every market rally, there is always a main theme. For example, the bull market in 2007 was mainly attributed to positive sentiment in the plantation sector.

During this period, we should buy stocks in the sectors that benefit from the rally. If your portfolio owned a lot of plantation stocks last year, you would benefit from the overall market rally last year. Hence, we should pick stocks that follow the market theme.

Then it will enter into settlement for some profit-taking activities. If the overall market sentiment remains bullish, it will resume its uptrend.

The bullish trend will reach a period where reality can no longer sustain the exaggerated expectations. Then the market will enter into contraction where long-term investors get very uncomfortable with the market situation.

In this period, we should sell poor fundamental stocks as well as stocks in sectors which will be seriously affected in a downtrending market.

There are still some short-term traders who may enter the market at this stage as they believe it may rebound later.

However, when the market drops further, it will enter into crisis where long-term investors as well as short-term traders are selling stocks.

Our market is currently in this phase where long-term investors as well as short-term traders are not willing to commit themselves. This is given the unsettling of the US financial crisis in companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG.

Despite the US government’s plan to rescue banks, not many analysts or fund managers are convinced that we have seen the worst.

Soros applied the theory of reflexivity to explain the current crisis.

According to him, the market participants’ misjudgements and misconceptions affect the stock market prices.

He said that later, these biased perceptions would affect both prices and the fundamentals that those prices are supposed to reflect.

When a market drops in prices, it creates fear. As a result of this fear factor, prices will drop further and later cause panic selling as the fundamentals will also be affected by lower prices. Then it will turn the investors’ perception into reality.

Soros called this a two-way reflexivity connection between perception and reality, which can give rise to initially self-reinforcing but later self-defeating.

Hence, in every stock market cycle, regardless of any stock market, while it may take a long time to reach its peak, when it drops, the drop will accelerate and be followed by panic selling.
At present, most investors will be eager to know when our market will enter into the recovery phase where the market will start to recover. It will be a mammoth job to predict the market bottom.

Nevertheless, we should consider buying some stocks whenever the market experiences panic selling like the recent global market crash on the fallout of Lehman Brothers and AIG.

According to Lauren C. Templeton and Scott Phillips in their book on Investing the Templeton Way, investors need to buy stocks whenever the market experiences panic selling.

They that we should take advantage of problems that are exaggerated in the minds of sellers because of the sellers’ near-term focus.

Even though they agree that buying into crisis may affect your portfolio performance, you will gain in the long term.

However, you need to make sure that you have enough cash to average down your purchases.
Ooi Kok Hwa is an investment adviser licensed by Securities Commission and managing partner of MRR Consulting.

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KLCI - 20080924 - The Star

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