Can You Invest In individual Stocks Using EPF Money?

Many people are probably aware that they can withdraw money from their EPF (Employees Provident Fund) savings to invest in ministry approved Unit Trust funds. However, many are probably not aware that there is also a way to invest the EPF money on individual Bursa Malaysia stocks!

Some people prefer the idea of leaving the tough decisions on choosing the right investments with Unit Trust Fund Managers but in doing so, they effectively relinquish control over how the money will be invested. Ironically, the objective of Fund Managers are often to safeguard their jobs, instead of looking after investors' best interest, i.e., make money and return on investments!

On average, EPF's average annual rate of dividend is between 5% to 6%. The rate of return is no doubt better than Fixed Desposits (FD) return but for the savvy or wise investors, this sort of return is barely sufficient to counter inflation! (By the way, forget about the so-called officially reported inflation rate of 2% to 3% because the reality is much higher than that!)

So instead of keeping all your money in EPF or leave the money with someone else, why not consider moving some money from EPF to investing in individual stocks of your choice? Without doubt, there are risks with this approach because one can potentially lose this hard earned money if the wrong choice of stocks is chosen! With the stock market being so volatile, you may think that this is extremely risky!

To mitigate the risk, one of the key success factor is through first of all doing a little bit of homework up-front and selecting stocks or companies that possess good quality and fundamentals, plus supported with decent dividend yield. To be comparable with the annual rate of dividend from EPF, one should look for dividend yield that can at least match EPF's if not better. A scan across some of the quality Bursa stocks will reveal that a number of companies under REITs and consumer businesses generally do fit such criteria!

So how do you qualify to withdraw funds from EPF for the above investment? Let's list down some of the salient points:

1. savings of at least RM5,000 more than the Basic Savings amount required in Account 1, and must be equal or below 55 years old. The basic savings is the minimum amount you must have in Account 1 before you can apply under this scheme. The table below shows the different minimum savings required for people of different ages:
   
   
   2) 20% from your savings in excess of your Basic Savings amount in your Account 1, that means the minimum amount for investment withdrawal is RM1,000.00, given the condition set in point (1).
   
   3) Formula of eligibility = (Account 1 – Basic Savings) x 20%.
   4) Investment can be made at the intervals of 3 months from the date of the last transfer, subject to the availability of the required balance in Account I.
   5) Investment must be through appointed external Fund Manager by the Ministry of Finance. Click here for the complete list.
   
   I hope this gives you an idea of an alternative form of investing, for your hard-earned savings that you can't simply screw up, i.e., EPF. In my next post, I shall touch on precisely how you can invest in individual Bursa stocks using your EPF funds and the inherent costs that you should be aware of.
   
   Here's the link to EPF should you require further clarification.

Exchange Traded Fund vs Mutual Fund (Unit Trust)

During an uptrend market like the current, you may consider to invest in an index linked security (alternatively also known as tracker fund) instead of trying to pick the right stock. An index linked security essentially links its performance according to the broad market index performance, such as Dow Jones Industrial Index or Malaysia's FBMKLCI. Locally in Malaysia, there are many index-linked unit trust funds available in the market. However, before you consider parting your money in an index-linked Fund, understand your cost of investment and consider the alternative such as ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).



ETFs are baskets of securities that trade like stocks on an exchange and are designed to track the performance of an index. Examples are FBM KLCI ETF Fund and MyETF Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25, the first Syariah compliant ETF in Asia.

Investors who want to buy an index linked unit trust fund may be better off buying the ETF which does exactly the same. The obvious benefit is that the cost of ETF is cheaper. This is because there are no management and upfront fees, unlike unit trusts.

 The upfront fees for unit trust in Malaysia on average is about 3% to 5% but could be as high as 7%!

Besides, a unit trust fund may charge up to 1.5% a year on management fee, which is much higher than the 0.5% charged by the FBM KLCI ETF.

Buying ETF is exactly the same as buying a stock, with the same lot size of 100 units. Unlike unit trust, buying and selling ETF is easy and traded real-time. Dividend is also distributed by ETFs generally on a half yearly basis.

So next time when you were to be approached by unit trust salesperson, find out about the cost of investment first. Don't let the hidden charges affect your fund performance.

How To Invest In Overseas Equity Market?

For those who would like to diversify their portfolio investments beyond the local shore, this article sets to explore the ways to do so. Just to emphasize, I am articulating on direct or active investment instead of passive investment such as investing in unit trusts.

Thanks to globalisation and increased investors' appetite for better investment returns, many Malaysians have started investing offshore (In part this is also due to the fact that Malaysia stock market is no longer favoured by foreigners and is lagging far behind stockmarkets in Hong Kong, China or even Singapore in both performance and liquidity).

If you are interested in investing in multiple key global markets, the one that instantly comes to my mind is Interactive Brokers (IB). IB offers a very comprehensive list of financial markets to invest in, ranging from North America (U.S, Canada, Mexico) to Europe and Asia Pacific (Australia, Hong Kong, India and Japan) region. The products offered are also wide ranging, from equity to forex, derivatives, bonds, ETFs, CFDs and so on.

IB's brokerage rate is also one of the lowest available. For instance, to trade in U.S. stocks, the brokerage charge is only US$0.50 per lot (of 100 shares) with a minimum $1 brokerage per order!

Application for an account can be done easily through the web (online). Even Agreements can be digitally "signed" online! The only manual work which you need to provide them is a copy of your Passport and a signed copy of certain local Authority Form such as W-8BEN in the case of trading in U.S. For added convenience, you may fax them a copy of these documents or simply scan and email a copy to them.

One word of caution though, the trading software for IB is not that user friendly. So it may take some time for you to get used to it. However, step-by-step guides are readily available from their website. All you need to do is to run the videos.

For those who are interested in trading in the U.S. market only, my preferred broker is ThinkorSwim (ToS). Brokerage rate is higher at $1.50 per lot or fixed at $9.95 per trade (whichever is lower and subject to a maximum of 50 lots for fixed rate) but the trading software is much more user friendly and feature packed. Among them include the ability to display multiple chart patterns all in one screen.

The beauty about these online brokers is that you can also do virtual trading, that is, trade without real money! This will give you a sense of better confidence before starting real trades, and is ideal for beginners who would like to get familiarise with the trading platform and/or test certain trading strategies.

To start real trading, you will need to deposit funds first into the trading account. In other words, there is no more T+x day type of settlement. All trades are cash up front but you may choose to trade with a margin facility.

Funds can be easily transferred from your local banking account to the U.S. designated account using wired transfer or more commonly known as Telegraphic Transfer (TT) in Malaysia. You will need to bear the TT charges (charged by both local and foreign banks) as you do the transfer. Just inform the broker about the transfer and they will notify you once the amount is successfully banked in. Normally, this should happen within the same business day.

Trading platform is much more sophisticated compared to our local markets as you can literally set your trading criteria (e.g., entry price, stop loss and profit target) and walk away without ever watching the screen again! You can even set orders such as market order, stop order with or without limit and OCO (One Cancel Other) orders. Once you learn how to do it, trading is very easy and a peace of mind in case you are busy at work or go to sleep!

Other than signing up with online brokers, the other viable option is to trade via your local investment bankers or stock brokers. A number of local Investment brokers have for the past couple of years rollout offshore trading in order to cater for this increased interests. Among the Investment Brokers offering this service include CIMB, OSK, Kenanga, Maybank and RHB Investment Bank.

However, do take note that this type of trading is not done online. The arrangement is between yourself and your local broker. Orders can be instructed by you and your broker will forward the trade instruction with their respective counterpart in the particular country of trade. Exchange rate is determined by the broker on the day of trade. There is no standard brokerage rates apply so you will need to verify with your preferred broker before trading. There will also be some signing of paperwork required before you want to start trading offshore.

Generally, this type of 3rd party or indirect trading will be more costly than online trading. It will probably be fine if you do not intend to trade offshore frequently and do not have the time or patience to learn a new trading platform. Also bear in mind that there will be a delayed trading execution given the offline mode of instruction and involvement of 3rd party.

Switching to Cash May Feel Safe, but Risks Remain

Amidst the current global market weakness and the downward spiral performance of most asset classes, many people have advocated keeping cash as the best form of capital preservation. Recently I came across an interesting article that discusses the wisdom of liquidating one's investments and keeping cash. This article was written by Ron Lieber from The New York Times.

"It’s a question we’ve all asked in our darker moments of late: Why not just put all of our investments in cash, 100 percent, just for a little while, until things calm down?

Some people already seem to be acting on that instinct. In the first six days of October (through Monday), investors pulled $19 billion out of mutual funds that invest in United States stocks, matching the outflows for the entire month of September, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.

“What clients are looking for is safety,” said John Bunch, president of retail distribution at TD Ameritrade. “They are seeking solutions that are backed by the federal government. Specifically, F.D.I.C-insured money funds and certificates of deposit. All of it is under the umbrella of, ‘Am I safe and insured?’ ”

By fleeing for the comfort of safe and insured, however, investors with a time horizon beyond a few years may be doing real damage to their long-term finances. If you’re tempted to make a big move to cash right now, you’re doing something called market timing. It’s an implied statement that you’ve figured out the right moment to get out of stocks — and will also know the right time to get back in.

So let’s dispense with the first part straightaway. The right time to move out of stocks was a year or so ago, before various stock indexes the world over fell by one-third or more.

If you missed that opportunity, you’re hardly alone.

But if you sell now, you’ll be locking in your losses. And once you’re in cash, there isn’t much upside. In fact, with interest rates low, you’re likely to lose money in cash, because inflation will probably eat up the after-tax returns you earn from a savings or money-market account.

A guarantee of a small loss may sound good right now. But if you’re not bailing out of stocks once and for all, how will you know when it’s time to get back in? The fact is, any peace of mind you gain by being on the sidelines now will turn into a migraine once you see how much you can harm your portfolio over time by missing just a bit of any rebound.

H. Nejat Seyhun, a professor of finance at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, put together a study in 2005 for Towneley Capital Management, where he tested the long-term damage that investors could do to their portfolios if they missed out on the small percentage of days when the stock market experienced big gains.

From 1963 to 2004, the index of American stocks he tested gained 10.84 percent annually in a geometric average, which avoided overstating the true performance. For people who missed the 90 biggest-gaining days in that period, however, the annual return fell to just 3.2 percent. Less than 1 percent of the trading days accounted for 96 percent of the market gains.

This fall, Javier Estrada, a professor of finance at IESE Business School in Barcelona, published a similar study in The Journal of Investing that looked at equity markets in 15 nations, including the United States. A portfolio belonging to an investor who missed the 10 best days over several decades across all of those markets would end up, on average, with about half the balance of someone who sat tight throughout.

So moving to cash right now is just fine as long as you know precisely when to get back into stocks (even though you didn’t know when to get out of them).

At some point, stocks will indeed fall enough that investors will remove the money from their mattresses and put it to work, causing prices to rise significantly. But, as Bonnie A. Hughes, a certified financial planner with the Enrichment Group in Miami, put it to me, there won’t be an e-mail message or news release that goes out when this is about to happen. It will be evident only afterward, on the few days when the market surges.

And it gets worse for those who think they won’t have any trouble investing in stocks again later. Medium- or long-term investors who are considering a big move into cash right now are probably making an emotional decision, at least in part. For those who follow through, the same instincts will probably hurt when trying to figure out when to reinvest in stocks.

“The emotional forces that drove them out of the market aren’t likely to let them back in ‘until things are better,’ ” Dan Danford of the Family Investment Center in St. Joseph, Mo., said in an e-mail message. “And for most people, things won’t feel better again until the market has already moved back up.” In fact, he added, plenty of people may not allow themselves to get back in until the market has already risen significantly. "

Do you agree with the views posted on this article?

For the full article, please read on this link.

How To Stay On Top Of Your Mutual Fund Investment

Let's face it, most people out there have some form of mutual fund (unit trust) investment, whether present or past. It's also fair to assume that if you have a personal insurance protection, chances are your financial planner or insurance agent might have also sold you some form of mutual funds in the past. Many insurance policy these days are also attached with an investment linked policy, which allows policy holders to choose their choice of funds.

As per any form of investments, one should always monitor the performance periodically to make sure that your funds are performing up to expectation, and the fund continues to be invested in its original objectives and allocation. At times, reallocation of funds may be necessary to counter the cyclical trends, under-performance, etc.

In reality, sadly, many people simply leave their funds aside the moment they signed the dotted lines, and HOPE FOR THE BEST! For the "lucky" ones, their Financial Advisor may update them periodically of the funds' performances. However in most cases, they will never hear from their good old Financial Advisors any more, other than the time when the advisors "want" more money!

With the advancement of software technology and the internet, it is now very easy to track and monitor your mutual funds performance, all at one glance! I call this the "Mutual Funds In A Box"!

Introducing Morningstar. It is the most comprehensive database of mutual funds covering all major countries including US, UK, Asia Pacific and Malaysia. Besides offering up-to-date information such as fund objective, price, asset allocation, and performance on all mutual funds funds, the website also offers insightful analysis, unbiased fund ratings, and sophisticated analytical tools to help both individual and professional investors make more intelligent investment decisions.


When you are at the site, make sure you sign up as a member and it's absolutely free! Add a portfolio and assign the individual mutual funds that you have purchased. You may enter the date of purchase, amount and the unit price. With the click of a button, the system will automatically update the latest performances of all your individual funds, including market price, year-to-date and past year's performance, latest analyst rating and their respective asset allocation. Above all, you can also monitor all your trust funds COMBINED and assess your portfolio weightage for each trust fund and even individual assets!

In a nutshell, you are now able to track and monitor all your global trust funds investments by the simplest of clicks and hassle free! I strongly recommend you to check this out now! To choose different countries, simply click on the specific country located at the bottom of the website. For US residents, you may visit this link to take you there directly instead.

How To Invest Like A Shark

For possibly few lucky ones, it might have been a fruitful journey and were early to read the danger signs but for most, it's more likely to be a rocky road with encounters of many land mines! Given the current financial turmoil the world is facing, perhaps it's time to review your own investment or trading strategy.

I recently come across a fine investment book "Invest Like A Shark" written by James Deporre. Deporre was a featured writer for Jim Cramer's TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com since 2001.
In it he makes the case that you can not only beat the markets consistently, but also make money, or at the very least protect your money, even when the market is tanking.

But DePorre says the way to do it is NOT to do what the mutual funds do or what experts tell you to do - sit around waiting for a fundamentally sound stock to go up. Instead, use your advantage as a small investor to get into a stock already on the way up and hop out before it falls-getting in and out like a shark.

DePorre opines that the vast majority of investors have been brainwashed by traditional Wall Street into thinking that it is just plain foolish to approach the market in any manner other than the way a mutual fund or pension plan might. It has worked for them since the inception of the stock market so it should work for you equally well. The truth is that in most cases traditional investment advice doesn't even work that well for the big funds. The vast majority of funds never consistently beat the major indices, but the belief is still widely held that it is best approach for everyone. Unfortunately, the Whales of Wall Street really have no choice but to invest like whales. They are limited stylistically due to their size and the way that Wall Street works. The problem is that they keep trying to justify what they do by telling the rest of us that it is the best and most profitable style of investing. Maybe it is for them but not for the average individual.

DePorre also believes that investing the way many mutual fund investors did certainly is not the best way for the small investor who is investing his own funds.

The best approach according to DePorre for the average investor, who is managing his own money, is to invest like a shark. That means moving quickly, aggressively and running for safety at the first sign of trouble. It means looking at the market in a very different way than the big institutions and traditional brokers, and it means being in control and not being pushed around by powerful forces that the small investor has no control over anyway. Most individual investors have no clue and never will understand how lucrative and safe it is to be a quick, aggressive fast moving shark in an environment that is dominated by huge slow moving whales.
It is worthy to note that DePorre is not particularly interested in a stock's fundamentals or even what a company does; he just looks for the trend. While he does offers some thoughts on averaging in or doing limited stock sells along the way to take profits, this is not a book offering specific techniques. It's goal is to help you develop a mindset, to start thinking about how the market provides plenty of opportunities for big gains, and how the market often clearly signals when it's time to exit.

DePorre's technique is obviously not for everyone, but for those who are open to new ideas and do not have a good "system" yet to follow, this might be worthy to pick up.

You can get more details about his book on http://www.investlikeashark.com

Is It Time To Buy Into Battered Vietnam Stocks?

For many, Vietnam has long been touted as the next China in the making... With a USD$70 billion economy, 85 million diligent working-class population and 8.5% GDP growth, it's not unrealistic to make such predictions. Many foreign companies have flocked into Vietnam, setting up mainly low-cost manufacturing plants and ventured into the property market to serve the supposedly "hungry" market. However, being a relative new emerging market, risks are abundance. Nevertheless, it is difficult to ignore Vietnam as it has all the potential to be the next major source of growth, after China and India.

So, today, i would like to take this opportunity to share with you an article on Vietnam from an investment perspective.

Today Vietnam has an inflation problem, but it’s a great market to pick up value, says a chief investment officer, adding that price/earnings ratios for many firms have fallen to below 10 times — cheaper than the Thai and Philippines markets.

The hype about Vietnam’s WTO entry and its “mini-China” potential has been washed away by double-digit inflation but, ironically, now could be the time for funds to pour money into the country’s ravaged stock market.

Investment managers who talked up Vietnam in the past two years say that amid the slump in shares, bargains are emerging in the US$70 billion economy, which is still expected to grow as much as 7.5 per cent this year despite a global slowdown.

Government estimates show foreign direct investment disbursements would jump 25 per cent to US$10 billion in 2008 from last year, when it joined the World Trade Organisation.

After two years of what some have described as gambling in the fledgling stock markets of the Communist Party-run Southeast Asian country, investors are urged to take a long-term view.

“I used to joke that Vietnam didn’t need a casino because it’s got two: the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City stock exchanges,” said Bradley Lalonde, chief investment officer at BIDV-Vietnam Partners Investment Management. “In a way, it became that.”

However, Lalonde said companies had not borrowed heavily and still needed capital to take advantage of an emerging middle class and a fast growing economy that has drawn manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Intel Corp, Compal and Foxconn.

Some companies, including listing candidates who have already had initial public offerings pushed back, would look to foreign investors to raise equity through private placements.

“Yes, they’ve got an inflation problem, but it’s a great market to pick up value,” said Lalonde.

Investment strategist Spencer White, who helped stoke Vietnam fever in 2006 with a report calling it a “10-year buy" while he was at Merrill Lynch, said market bubbles were popping.

“One bubble has burst — equities. The other bubble currently bursting is the property market,” said White, who is an adviser to Thien Viet Securities in Ho Chi Minh City.

Property prices have fallen about 10-15 per cent this year, after quadrupling in cities last year.

“That means opportunity,” White said at a sparsely attended Hong Kong conference session on Vietnam. “I’ve seen more private equity teams in the last six weeks than in the previous six months.”

While the global credit crunch has done little to encourage investment in risky emerging markets, Vietnam’s headaches are rooted in soaring food, fuel and house prices, reflected in a 19.4 per cent jump in the consumer price index in March.

To battle inflation, authorities have sought to restrict bank lending, which grew 50 per cent last year. The government also has raised bank reserve requirements and interest rates, and imposed stricter rules on lending.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange is the worst performer in Asia this year, losing 43 per cent, after being one of the top performers a year ago. The share slump prompted government intervention in March to buy back shares and restrict the intra-day trading band to 1 per cent.

The market rose sharply on Monday after regulators doubled the intra-day share trading band to 2 per cent to increase liquidity.

“The panic that was around suggested that the Vietnam story was over, but that’s clearly not the case,” said Kevin Snowball of PXP Asset Management in Ho Chi Minh City. “The government intervention achieved its aim to slow down the fall and the panic and now people can stop and think long term.”

Sacombank Securities, whose research tries to educate with a “word of the day” explaining terms such as net asset value, says catfish exporter Navico is trading at 8.8 times earnings, while Petrovietnam Fertilizer and Chemicals Co, information technology firm FPT and Industrial group Hoa Phat are at around 13 times.

Still, Vietnam remains an opaque market, lacking research to aid investors. The stock market is still illiquid and the government interventions have highlighted the risk that new rules can be sprung on investors.

“It’s possible to make a quick killing but you could be the one to get killed!” investment manager Lalonde said.

For the complete article, please visit Reuters.

In Malaysia, one can invest in Vietnam via the Vietnam Unit Trust fund offered by Hong Leong Bank. However, as this is a wholesale fund, only high net worth individuals (those with net worth more than RM3 million or roughly USD$960k) are eligible!

How To Manage Investment Volatility

When the market is on a bull run, as it was in the earlier part of the year, or during the first half of 2007, investors tend to neglect risks. However recent events (triggered by US sub-prime and financial meltdown) demonstrated that investing in stock markets isn't for the faint of heart. A case in point is that for the past few months, wild swings of daily stock market indexes by few percentage points were common. How does one manage his or her portfolio in such volatility? For some, unloading all their stocks and keep all their CASH safely in the bank may sound the safest option. Others may switch part or entire portfolio to other safer instruments such as gold or commodities, or cash instruments.

While timing everything right seems impossible, there are better ways to manage one's portfolio. Essentially, getting it right at the start is important. One will worry less if one's portfolio is structured right to start off with, that is, maintain an asset allocation strategy based on one's personal risk profile at the very first place. With asset allocation, diversify one's portfolio is the key, in order to reduce over dependence of a specific asset class, that is.

Diversify
One such method is to consider various instruments that have low correlation to one another. For example, while directly investing in individual stocks has good direct exposure, consider investing in unit trusts or ETFs, where typically the funds will be invested in a basket of stocks instead of one individual stock. In principal, stocks tend to be a lot more volatile than equity unit trusts for the reason that funds tend to be more diversified because they are invested in multiple stocks.

Other low correlation asset classes include bonds, commodities (gold, metals) and real estate properties. Gold is a perfect case in point, where prices have escalated by around 50% from 2007 to-date due to sky rocketing crude oil prices and perception of safe-heaven characteristic.
Adopt Mid to Long Term Horizon The longer the time horizon is, the more volatility one can tolerate as one has more time to recover from short term volatility. Putting a mid to long term strategy in place will certainly allow an investor to take into consideration factors that will affect one's portfolio, such as market cycles, political stability and economic swings.

Stay Objective
While i agree that investing in general should be taken with a long term perspective, it is not a hard and fast rule as it is also important to stay objective and be alert to potential major changes in business or economic environment from both local and global perspective. For example, while investing in China equity at one point (prior to 2007) may be a great idea tapping into the explosive growth of Chinese companies, an investor should consider unloading some or all of the funds invested to else where when Chinese stocks were trading at lofty and unrealistic valuations. Another example is when subprime issues first surfaced, it is wise to find out from the brokers or agents immediately where their property trust funds were invested. It is wise to liquidate such investments when the stakes are high!

Invest Regularly
Invest regularly is also a good way to manage periodic market volatility. For many this could be in the form of monthly investment, directly from their monthly income or retirement fund savings. In essence one will continue to invest a particular sum of money regardless of whether the market rises or falls. This method is also commonly termed as Dollar Cost Averaging.

One may choose to invest more regularly during the bull market and less regularly during the bear market. However, again there is really no hard and fast rule, it all depends on each individual's risk profile and preference.

Is Investing In ETF Better Than Unit Trust?

Exchange-Traded Fund or in short, ETF, is very much a mirror of unit trust fund. The key difference is that ETF can be traded just like stocks or shares in the stock exchange trading platform. The cost of ETF trading is therefore subject to the same ordinary costs of share trading, such as brokerage fee, stamp duty (may be exempted in some countries) and clearing fee. Essentially, the cost of ETF trading is also lower than investing in unit trusts, which typically attracts up-front sales charges and annual maintenance charges. With the cost of investing in ETF being lower, it is imperative that such instrument is gaining popularity, perhaps at the expense of unit trust.

For instance, in the case of Malaysia unit trust industry, it has been constantly dogged by high sales charges of between 3% to 6%, compared to other countries where the range generally starts from as low as 1%.

ETF was first introduced in the Canadian Toronto Stock Exchange in 1990 but it has since gained huge popularity in US and Europe and now Asia. ETF first started in US in 1993 and there are now over 400 ETFs traded in US and more than a thousand in the world, with total assets surging to about USD800 million! According to Morgan Stanley, average trading volume has also doubled over the last 12 months!

ETFs are essentially open-ended funds that track various index-linked equity, fixed income, commodity and even currencies. Trading of ETFs in Malaysia is relatively new, being only first introduced in 2005. The ETFs available in Malaysia are:

1. ABF Malaysian Bond Index Fund - This ETF invests in a basket of Ringgit denominated Government and quasi-Government bonds
   
2. FTSE Large 30 Index Fund - This ETF invests in a group of stocks comprising of the 30 largest companies listed in Bursa Malaysia.
   
3. Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 - This ETF is the first Syariah Exchange Traded Fund launched in Asia.
   

In a nutshell, ETFs enable investors the following benefits:
- gain broad exposure to entire stock markets of different countries with relative ease on trading and at a lower cost to unit trust;
- diversify portfolio without exposing to the risk of one individual stock;
- unlike unit trust, ETFs are highly liquid and transparent;

So, for those investors who are fed up with his or her unit trust funds' constant poor performances due to the failure of so-called "professional" fund managers, whose interests generally lean towards only beating index benchmarks, you may want to consider ETFs since you will now have better control and incur lower cost of investments.

However, do bear in mind there is no certainty in any form of investments. One will still subject to the economic, political, currency, legal or other risks inherent in a specific sector or market that affects the performance of the indexes being tracked by the ETFs.