The Employees Provident Fund or EPF is Malaysia's statutory solution for retirement savings. Every salaried employee and his/her employer is mandated by law to contribute into this fund. The fund takes the contributions and invests generally in equities, fixed income, and real estate. These investments are made both within and outside of Malaysia. At the… Continue reading Why EPF’s 2024 Report Signals Lower Returns
Category: Investment
EPF’s Negative Surplus and Reserves
EPF of Malaysia just released its 2023 Annual Report on 30 October 2024. It is astounding that it took such a prominent entity in Malaysia almost a year to release this report. I guess most Malaysians do not read the annual report of their retirement savings fund. Otherwise they may be wondering what's the big… Continue reading EPF’s Negative Surplus and Reserves
Currency Exchange Rates
The Malaysian Ringgit began strengthening significantly against the US Dollar from around mid-July this year. It went from RM 4.67 for 1 US Dollar then to RM 4.33 for 1 US Dollar today. This means if you hold Malaysian assets, the asset value has increased by 7% in about 90 days when it is valued… Continue reading Currency Exchange Rates
Slowing of the US Fed Funds Rate Hike
The US Fed has been increasing the funds rate since March 2022 at a blistering pace. Within a year, the rates raised from zero to over 4.5%. Right now, in April 2023, it is around to 4.8%. However, there now seems to be an end in sight for the rate hikes. Since February 2023, the… Continue reading Slowing of the US Fed Funds Rate Hike
Lessons From Bad Stock Investments
There are countless books and articles in the internet recommending ways to assess if a stock is worthy to be invested or not. In most cases, those sources talk about the stocks that do well and use them in their analysis to uncover the metrics that reveal a successful stock. I will do the opposite… Continue reading Lessons From Bad Stock Investments
2020 Stocks Review
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash 2020 proved that you can never really predict what's going to happen in the stock market or the economy. As we all remember, there was a flash of panic in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic but things quickly recovered as central banks around the world printed trillions in… Continue reading 2020 Stocks Review
2020 – Lessons to be Learnt on Property Investment
2020 has been a particularly tough teacher in the Property 101 class. The Covid-19 pandemic absolutely wrecked everything in the short term rental space as tourists stopped visiting Kuala Lumpur and many business owners were affected by the movement control orders (MCO) in Malaysia. The first sign of trouble for me was a tenant suddenly… Continue reading 2020 – Lessons to be Learnt on Property Investment
Investing Like Warren Buffet
Anyone who has read about investing would likely have heard about Warren Buffet. Many books have been written about him and there are many people who try to copy his investing styles. Heck, there are even people willing to part with over half a million dollars just to have a chat with him. Unless those… Continue reading Investing Like Warren Buffet
Long Term Trend of the S&P 500
On Christmas eve, the S&P 500 lost 2%. By itself it would have been an uncommon event, if weren't for the fact that year-to-date, it would be down by over 12%. It is also almost 20% down from its peak in September. Everyone was wondering if Santa has neglected the stock market investors this year.… Continue reading Long Term Trend of the S&P 500
The Bear Strikes The Market
2018 is now drawing to a close but the usual year end rally is not in sight this time. The FBM KLCI is down 7% this year but if you measure from its peak in April, it's down almost 13%. A drop of 10% is technically considered a correction. If you look at the darlings… Continue reading The Bear Strikes The Market
The Finance Durian 