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“Where there is a demand, there is a supply.”
Capital Guaranteed Fund was once a selling like a hot cake product in western world. Its popularity became less when investors there found out that its performance was not so impressive as they expected. The smart promoters shift their target to another part of world: wealthy Asian, but less educated compared to their western counterparts.
Since 97/98 Great Asian Financial Crisis, investors in Asian countries become a man after shock: any investment tagged with “Capital Guaranteed, Zero Risk” will receive a warm welcome from these investors. While for every prudent and rational investment should first preserve capital and then only look for capital appreciation, the fund promoting “Capital Guaranteed, Zero Risk” is another story.
Recently, quite of number of funds pop up with tagged of “Capital Guaranteed, Zero Risk” in Malaysia to lure investors. Let’s look at how 1 of the fund structures its “Capital Guaranteed, Zero Risk” product.
NTD launched its RM 300 million DUT Fund. The fund is an offshore fund with capital guaranteed feature. Investors who buy DUT Fund must starts with initial investment of RM 5,000. The fund is for 3 years maturity, where the capital is guaranteed after 3 years period while at the same time, POTENTIALLY GAIN from any capital appreciation. 85-90% of the investment would be placed with a negotiable investment deposit to ensure capital return guarantee and invest the remainder in 5 regional indices, namely, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Taiwan and China. To entice investors, the promoters show their back-test that over past 3 years, these indices appreciated at the rate of 34% per annum. Without deep thinking, everything seems great, isn’t it?
There are too many con men out of field waiting for the innocent yet naïve people, to suck out their hard-earned money. No matter it is in the stock market, real estate, commodities market and so forth.
History always tells us something. People who deny history would eventually lose out all. In 1999, when the euphoria of the stock came to the climax, two men, James Glassman and Kevin Hassett wrote a book titled “Dow 36000”. They predicted that Dow Jones Industrial Index will reach at 36000 anytime soon and latest in year 2005. If you think this two gentlemen are an ordinary man, you are totally wrong. Glassman, an investing columnist for the Washington Post, and Hassett, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who used to be an economist at the Federal Reserve. Because of their background and title, many people fall into the prey that “they are intelligent people, what they say makes sense”. So, they pour their money into the stock market when the market was at its peak. The result, they lost US$8 trillion (YES! It’s US$8,000,000,000,000 !!!) With this amount, you can buy 3,200 Petronas Twin Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (used to be the world’s tallest building in the world)
Stepping into the beginning of 21st century, similar phenomenon will appear. From time to time, someone will come out and shout to you:” Oil will reach to $300 per barrel!”, “Gold will hit $3000 per ounce!”. When the euphoria shift to commodities market, you will notice that some magazines will announce “The Death of Equities” and someone will author the book titled “Dows 360”. When this moment arrives, grab as many as you can from the stock market. Of course, choose only “good” stock.
What is a bubble? You won't know about it until it's already happened...and then it's too late,,,
“Where there is a demand, there is a supply.”
