KENANGA INVESTORS BERHAD WON RECOMONDED UNIT TRUST

We are proud to announce that 2 of Kenanga Investors Berhad's (KIB) funds won the Recommended Unit Trusts Awards 2014/15 by Fundsupertmart.com (FSM).

Our Kenanga Growth Fund and Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund garnered recognition in the Core Equity - Malaysia and Core Equity - Malaysia (Islamic) categories respectively.

Only unit trusts with examplary track records make it into the FSM's Recommended Unit Trusts list.

WAKTU TERBAIK UNTUK MELABUR

Salam hormat buat semua sahabat dan rakan pelabur atau pun yang sentiasa mengikuti perkembangan Kenanga Syariah melalui blog ini. Akhir-akhir ini beberapa sahabat pelabur ataupun rakan-rakan yang baru berkenalan dengan unit trust ada menghubungi saya dan bertanya tentang market semasa dan prospek akan datang.

Ramai sahabat-sahabat memandang market pelaburan semasa pada waktu ini hinggakan ada di antara kita takut nak menambah pelaburan ataupun memulakan pelaburan. Sebenarnya, sekiranya anda menambah atau memulakan pelaburan pada waktu ini, saya katakan anda adalah orang yang paling bijak. Kenapa pula begitu?

Kerana dalam ketidak tentuan pasaran saham pada hari ini, maka anda sepatutnya mengambil inisiatif untuk menambah pelaburan/ menambah unit sama ada cash ataupun melalui potongan EPF. Kerana anda dapat membeli 1 unit pelaburan dalam harga yang rendah. Perkara ini akan berbeza sekiranya anda membeli atau menambah untit dalam tempoh 4 bulan akan datang..........Pada waktu itu mungkin pasaran saham akan kukuh dan bergerak amat agresif sehinggakan anda tidak mampu membeli unit dalam harga yang rendah.

Sebagai contoh, harga sekilo gula RM 1.00, anda ada RM 10.00, maka anda boleh membeli 10 kg gula pada waktu ini. Tetapi apabila anda tunggu pasaran gula naik dan stabil selepas 4 bulan akan datang, pada waktu itu kemungkinan besar harga gula sudah meningkat pada harga RM 2.00 sekilo. jada anda hanya akan mendapat 5 kilo gula sahaja pada waktu itu. Dalam kes ini pastinya anda akan menyesal dikemudian hari.

Pada pandangan saya, sementara pasaran saham kita masih tidak kukuh/tidak menentu, kata mudah masih ding-dong turun naik, maka pada waktu ini adalah waktu yang paling baik sekiranya anda mempunyai cadangan untuk membuat penambahan pelaburan anda. Apatah lagi keuntungan pelaburan yang dibahagikan pada akhir tahun kepada setiap pelabur juga bergantung kepada berapa lama pelaburan itu dilaburkan pada tahun berkenaan. Jadi jangan lepaskan peluang keemasan ini untuk menambah pelaburan.

SELAMAT MELABUR DEMI MASA HADAPAN

Recommended Funds 2011/2012

FUNDS THAT WE RECOMMEND

We strive to analyze funds with as long a comparable history as possible and only within their peer group. For a look at our methodology, please go to here. Please note that while we hope that these recommendations would be useful for investors, you are also advised to look at the fund's prospectus and do your own further research before making your investment decisions.

We advise investors to have a diversified portfolio that is spread over the whole world. The recommended funds should not be seen as being recommended in isolation. These funds are what we would recommend amongst their peer groups if you would like to invest in a fund from a particular sector or region. So, if you are interested in funds from one region like Japan, then you can see the recommended funds we have within the Japan region. There is little basis of comparing a Japan fund with a Europe fund.

For investors who are also interested in an allocation to the various sectors, we suggest that you refer to our Sector Star Ratings page which shows our views towards the various regions. For aggressive investors who wish to take more risk for the purpose of potentially higher returns, you can take note of the articles we sometimes put out highlighting Fundsupermart's view of a particular region.

For a more detailed description of why we recommend any particular fund, please click on the recommended fund's name below:

Funds Recommended	Fundsupermart Risk Rating	Invested over the length of time						Buy?
		3 mth (%)	1 yr (%)	2 yr (%)	3 yr (%)	5 yr (%)	YTD (%)
Asia Ex-Japan Equity Islamic
Prudential Asia Pacific Shariah Equity Fund	8-High Risk	1.25	-5.55	-1.68	52.17	-	1.57
Asia Ex-Japan Balanced
OSK-UOB Asia Active Allocation Fund	6-Moderately High Risk	3.9	-7.99	-0.88	39.39	-	3.9
Global Balanced
RHB Global Multi Manager Fund	6-Moderately High Risk	1.94	-0.78	5.97	32.25	-	1.76
Malaysia Balanced
OSK-UOB KidSave Trust	5-Moderate Risk	4.4	5.33	20.15	53.15	65.91	1.4
RHB GoldenLife 2020	5-Moderate Risk	5.51	0.69	20.51	62.64	85.97	0.4
Malaysia Balanced Small To Medium Companies
OSK-UOB Growth And Income Focus Trust	6-Moderately High Risk	5.81	-1.02	13.69	30.87	54.62	2.76
Asia Ex-Japan Equity
Prudential Asia Pacific Equity Fund	8-High Risk	2.03	-9.44	-0.39	56.38	-0.57	5.81
Global Equity
Alliance Global Equities Fund	7-Moderately Higher Risk	1.13	-7.76	-0.21	44.57	-7.13	2.65
RHB Global Fortune Fund	7-Moderately Higher Risk	1.62	-2.3	-2.54	22.21	-22.83	0.28
Global Emerging Markets Equity
AmGlobal Emerging Markets Opportunities	9-Higher Risk	-0.38	-17.33	-14.45	45.17	-	3.64
Malaysia Equity
Areca Equity Trust Fund	8-High Risk	4.89	-3.27	23.43	77.37	-	-0.12
Kenanga Growth Fund	8-High Risk	9.49	20.06	57.02	113.66	107.69	1.08
Malaysia Equity Small to Medium Companies
OSK-UOB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust	9-Higher Risk	10.03	4.35	26.65	58.73	72.23	2.6
Asia Bond
Alliance Asian Bond Fund	4-Moderately Low Risk	-1.05	3.6	0.46	3.36	12.45	-0.44
Malaysia Bond
AmBond	1-Lower Risk	1.46	6.27	12.97	19.31	31.61	0.6
AmDynamic Bond	1-Lower Risk	3.07	11.02	21.33	32.51	50.43	1.22
Global Equity Islamic
AmOasis Global Islamic Equity	7-Moderately Higher Risk	-1.29	-8.18	-12.08	15.7	-25.96	-0.64
Global Balanced Islamic
OSK-UOB Muhibbah Income Fund	6-Moderately High Risk	0.59	-2.49	1.63	11.46	-	1.41
Malaysia Balanced Islamic
Prudential Dana Dinamik	5-Moderate Risk	6.61	10.27	25.72	54.73	49.39	0.81
Malaysia Equity Islamic
Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund	8-High Risk	8.43	17.41	50.5	100.36	96.91	1.11
Prudential Dana Al-Ilham	8-High Risk	9.35	9.75	32.69	89.08	65.44	1.33

The figures in the above table were last updated on January 30, 2012

Please note

1. Investment involves risk. The price of securities may go down as well as up, and under certain circumstances an investor may sustain a total or substantial loss of investment. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of the future or likely performance of the fund. Investors should read the relevant fund's prospectus for details before making any investment decision. An Investor should make an appraisal of the risks involved in investing in these products and should consult their own independent and professional advisors, to ensure that any decision made is suitable with regards to their circumstances and financial position.
2. Performance figures are cumulative returns and calculated using NAV-to-NAV prices, in RM, with any income or dividends reinvested. Sales charge is not included.
3. All performance data are compiled by Fundsupermart.com, based on the prices from the fund houses.
4. The performance figures in the table above are calculated using bid-to-bid prices, with any income or dividends reinvested. Performance figures are cumulative.

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Malaysia Equity Islamic

Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund (Fundsupermart Risk Rating: 8-High Risk)  The Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund ranked second among Malaysia Equity funds for the past four-year and one-year periods ended March 2011. It was also the third best performing Malaysia Equity fund in 2010. The fund has the highest resilience during market corrections and downturns as it ranked first under our risk criterion, out of the 32 Malaysia Equity funds. However, the fund’s expense ratio was higher than the average of funds in the Malaysia Equity category. We like this fund for its relatively strong performance and high resilience. The fund invested 31.0% of its assets in the trading/services sector and 15.6% in the consumer products sector (as at 31 March 2011). Private consumption is expected to continue to be the key driver of Malaysian economic growth, while the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) will be the main driver of the equity market. Corporate earnings from the key sectors that propel the equity market such as construction, oil and gas, plantation and banking are expected to grow as the ETP unfolds. Investors should note that single country equity funds tend to be more volatile than regional or global equity funds due to the lack of geographical diversification. However, as the fund’s exposure is mainly to the RM, Malaysian investors will not experience currency risk when investing in the fund.

Malaysia Equity

Kenanga Growth Fund (Fundsupermart Risk Rating: 8-High Risk)

 
The Kenanga Growth Fund ranked top among Malaysia Equity funds for the past four-year and one-year periods ended March 2011. It was also the best performing Malaysia Equity fund in 2010. The fund has high resilience during market corrections and downturns and ranked sixth under our risk criterion, out of the 32 Malaysia Equity funds. The fund’s expense ratio was slightly lower than the average of Malaysia Equity funds. We like this fund for its relatively strong performance, high resilience and moderate expense ratio.

The fund invested 31.4% of its assets in the trading/services sector and 16.5% in the finance sector (as at 31 March 2011). Private consumption is expected to continue to be the key driver of Malaysian economic growth, while the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) will be the main driver of the equity market. Corporate earnings from the key sectors that propel the equity market such as construction, oil and gas, plantation and banking are expected to grow as the ETP unfolds. Investors should note that single country equity funds tend to be more volatile than regional or global equity funds due to the lack of geographical diversification. However, as the fund’s exposure is mainly to the RM, Malaysian investors will not experience currency risk when investing in the fund.

10 FUNDS DOWNSIDE RISKS OF THE KLCI

10 FUNDS DOWNSIDE RISKS OF THE KLCI

Traditionally, the higher the gains, the higher the risks. So let's take a look at the downside risks of these ten funds and of the KLCI.

Table 2: Downside Risks
#	Funds	2011 Downside Risk*
1	Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund	7.4%
2	Prudential Equity Income Fund	7.6%
3	Alliance Optimal Income Fund	8.2%
4	Kenanga Growth Fund	8.6%
	FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI	9.8%
5	RHB Malaysia DIVA Fund	9.9%
6	OSK-UOB Malaysia Dividend Fund	10.1%
7	Prudential Dana Al-Ilham	10.4%
8	AmIttikal	10.4%
9	AmIslamic Growth	11.4%
10	OSK-UOB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust	16.2%
Source: Bloomberg, iFAST *Downside risk is the annualised standard deviation of daily losses

Lower Risk, Higher Returns Than The Market

Table 2 shows how risky the funds were with respect to making losses. Just to be clear, downside risk is not a measure of risk-adjusted returns. A low downside risk indicates that the losses (if any) tend to be very consistent, whereas high downside risk indicates that the losses (if any) could be anywhere in between mild and extreme.

The results show that six better-performing funds had more erratic downward movements than the market (as represented by the broad-based KLCI). Although a fund might have higher gains, investors would also need to be able to ride out periods of losses when markets turn bad.

That said, investors who are risk-averse could consider those funds which have lower downside risks than the broad-based KLCI, yet achieved higher returns than the index. The top four funds in Table 2 certainly fit the bill.

Fancy Small Caps?

The definition of a small cap company within the context of Malaysia is not defined accurately as different fund houses apply different criteria. In the simplest terms, a small cap company is one that is listed on the Main Board, and is not part of the top 100 companies based on market capitalisation. Of the ten funds that outperformed the KLCI, one of which invests in small cap companies - the OSK-UOB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust.

OSK-UOB Investment Management Berhad defines a small cap as a company with a market cap of less than RM750 million. In 2011, sentiments were weak and riskier assets were under immense selling pressure, which resulted in the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia Small Cap Index recording a total return of -4.0%. The OSK-UOB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust had an average cash holdings of 11.0% in 2011 which probably helped cushion stock market losses and enhanced the performance of the fund. Not surprisingly, this fund also has the highest downside risk as seen in Table 2.

IN CLOSING...... ten funds on our platform managed to beat the KLCI in terms of total returns, and only four funds did so in a less risky manner. Our analysis is based on 2011 total returns, and investors with longer-term investment time horizon should look into the longer-term performance and downside risk of the funds before making an investment decision. It's hard to say that would happen in 2012, suffice to say that there remain dark spots in the US, Europe, Arab nations and China at the time of writing.

TOP PERFORMING FUND 2011

TOP PERFORMING FUND 2011

Key Points:

• 10 funds beat the KLCI
• Top performing fund was Kenanga Growth Fund
• 4 funds had lower downside risk than the KLCI
• 1 small cap fund achieved higher gains but came with higher risks

As a continuation of a similar article we wrote at the beginning of last year, we reviewed the performance of the Malaysia equity funds on our platform. There was a lot of uncertainty in 2011 and 2012 is expected to be a continuation of previous years; no different in terms of the amount of volatility besetting the financial markets globally.

Though the FBM KLCI only gained 4.5% in terms of total return in 2011 (a pale comparison to 23.8% a year earlier), it was among the best performing markets under our coverage. Within the Malaysia equity space, how many funds on our platform bested the KLCI's performance? See Table 1 below for our findings.

TEN FUNDS OUTPERFORMED THE KLCI

Table 1: Funds that have outperformed the KLCI
#	Fund	2011 Return
1	Kenanga Growth Fund	19.1%
2	Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund	16.9%
3	Prudential Equity Income Fund	10.7%
4	Alliance Optimal Income Fund	9.2%
5	Prudential Dana Al-Ilham	9.0%
6	AmIslamic Growth	6.0%
7	AmIttikal	5.4%
8	OSK-UOB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust	5.2%
9	RHB Malaysia DIVA Fund	5.1%
10	OSK-UOB Malaysia Dividend Fund	5.0%
	FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI	4.5%*
Unit trust performance is based on NAV with dividends reinvested *Based on total returns, i.e. inclusive of dividends reinvested Source: Bloomberg and iFAST

Top Performing Fund

The top performing fund - Kenanga Growth Fund - has been a fund that everyone at Fundsupermart unanimously loves and is also one of the top-selling funds on our platform. The fund manager is particularly proud that they "try to minimise as far as practicable the volatility" of their funds, and that investors "will notice that our funds in general have lower volatility than their peer group."

This concurs with our findings when we analysed the fund's performance in a Chart Talk article, in which we concluded that the Kenanga Growth Fund is a relatively slow and steady performer as shown by the data.

The top performing funds mostly had significant exposure to sin product manufacturers (i.e. breweries and tobacco companies), oil palm plantations, telecommunication services companies, commercial banks and real estate investment trusts (REITs), all of which performed particularly well in 2011.

 Going forward, we expect Malaysia's economy to grow at 4.0 - 4.5% year-on-year in 2012, with the economy supported by domestic consumption and private and public investments under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

Islamic Funds For Muslims & Non-Muslims

Baru ini saya berjumpa dengan seorang prospek bukan Muslim, beliau berminat untuk melabur dalam Kenanga Investors Berhad. walaubagaimanapun beliau masih tercari Fund mana yang perlu dipilih untuk melabur! Lalu saya pun mencadangkan Kenanga Syariah Growth Fund. Persoalan yang timbul, Adakah Islamic Fund sesuai untuk bukan Islam?

Islamic Funds adalah untuk semua, sama ada untuk Muslim atau bukan muslim.Walaupun ianya mesti menepati syariah di bawah kawalan Syariah-Compliant  tetapi ianya tetap untuk semua. Akhir-akhir ini, masyarakat telah mengalih arah memandang Islamic Funds adalah pilihan terbai sekiranya ingin melabur.

Saudi Arabia adalah pelabur Kewanan Islam dunia paling terbesar dunia  anggaran USD 22.7 Billion dari 174 Fund. Manakala Malaysia merupakan kedua terbesar dalam pelaburan Kewangan Islam USD 5.1 Billion dan 184 Fund.

Dengan kehadiran Islamic Fund ini, pelaburan global bertambah lebih rancak dan menarik. Dengan itu para pelabur diharap tidak terlepas pandang paa Islamic Fund ini semasa membuat pelaburan kerana ianya akan memberi kesan yang besar  jangka masa panjang.

Islamic Fund terikat pada peraturan dan larangan semasa plaburan termasuk dilarang dari terlibat dalam perkara yang melibatkan Riba (interest), Gharar, berkongsi keuntungan dan kerugian melalui interest.

Syariah Compliant badan yang bertanggung jawab agar islamic fund di laburkan mengikut kriteria yang disyaratkan oleh pengawasan syariah melalui Penasihat Syariah. Dengan ini mereka perlu me,mbincagkan terlebih dahulu proses stock pelaburan yang diambil dari S & P (stock & poor) Syariah indeks, Dow Jones Islamic Market Indeks dan Securities Commision Malaysia.

Kesimpulannya, Islamic Fund yang dipantau oleh Securities Commission, adalah halal dan sesuai untuk Muslim dan bukan muslim. Setiap produk akan disahkan oleh Penasihat Syariah Company berkenaan. Dan yang paling menariknya kebanyakkan Islamic fund memberikan momentum yang besar dalam pelaburan dengan pulangan tinggi pada risiko yang rendah.

Semoga seamat memilih Islamic Fund yang lebih terjamin halal lagi bersih dan pulangan yang tinggi.