As I was trying to reduce the number of unread emails in my inbox, I discovered a handful of emails from almost half a year ago. Here's my attempt to make up and apologize for the oversight.
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Dear Investor Juan,
Helpful po talaga yung blog mo. Mejo nagiisip isip po ako ngayon. Kasi ang balak ko po is to invest or purchase ng units every month sa bpi equity ko, im planning 2k-4k per month. And Im planning to do it for a long time. Tapos I have a friend na gusto mg invest sa individual stocks, yung kuya nya kasi ganun yung gngwa. Citisec po yung broker nla and I saw there EIP na 5k ang starting investment then pwd rn mgaadd anytime na gusto mo. Im thinking of investing din sa individual stocks kng san alam ko n tatagal and lalaki p yung company.
My question is, kung papasok ako sa individual stocks, baba po yung ilalagay ko sa equities ko, and sabay ko po silang lalagyan ng pera monthly ? Should I just focus on equities or I can also try individual stocks? And do you have feedback about Citiseconline?
Thank you IJ.
Rek
February 6, 2013
Dear Rek,
Stick to the equity fund. Investing in individual stocks is too risky. There's not fool-proof way to pick stocks that will consistently outperform the market index or diversified equity funds. Also, by investing in individual stocks, you subject yourself needlessly to unique risk, which I have discussed in this post.
Finally, try to convince your friend to move to an equity fund, if it's not too late already.
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dear investor juan,
good evening sir.
i've been reading your blogs a lot since i stumbled into it last week. i love your blog! it's been a great help.
from reading your blogs, i was already decided this morning on investing 1M on bdo equity funds.
but when i asked for an opinion from a metrobank investment officer about investing in equity funds now,she said it's better if i wait for the market correction. and it's too expensive now.
when i checked bloomberg.com just now,it increased by 1.27%.
what is your take on this sir?
i'd love to hear from you.
thank you.
kristina
February 18, 2013
Dear Kristina,
Well, in hindsight, the investment officer that you talked to appears to be a genius since the correction that he mentioned seem to have happened just recently.
It's kinda funny that so-called experts have a knack of saying that a correction will happen, but fall short of saying exactly when it will happen and by how much prices will go down.
Anyway, with regard to investing in the long term, short term fluctuations--"corrections" included--does not really matter. And if you can't afford a long-term horizon, I suggest investing in something safer like bond or money market funds.
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Dear Investor Juan,
I have bdo and metro uitf and would like to know if it is a good time to invest with pnb-allied uitf. Pnb-allied uitf performed well for 2012 and I was thinking of bdo-equitable/pci merger, now the bdo equity fund which I believe was originally equitable-pci product is performing way ahead of bpi or metro equity fund. So my question is in such mergers, does the uitf become better, what do you think of pnb-allied merger in particular will it be good time to invest in its uitf? Though I have exsisting accounts with both banks, the bank personnels/manager is not much help when I inquire saying the merger has just taken effect (feb 9) so no info is given to them.
Thanks,
Maxine
February 19, 2013
Dear Maxine,
I don't have data to support this claim, but I strongly believe that events such as bank mergers have nothing to do with the performance of UITFs.
The performance of a fund depends on the performance of its constituent assets, and the composition of the fund (of a particular type) is determined by the fund manager. However, US data shows that skill may not be enough to consistently beat the market index. Finally, high fees make it even more difficult for investors to earn market-beating returns. IMO, neither of these factors--the skill of the fund manager and the level of fees--has anything to do with bank mergers.