Who Can Be EPF Millionaires?

EPF or KWSP has just declared 6.3% dividend rate for 2024 for both conventional & shariah accounts, which is the highest since 6.9% in year 2017.

Even though the guaranteed minimum dividend rate is 2.5%, EPF always outperforms by a good margin.

In the last 14 years, 9 years saw its dividend at 6% or above.

It was reported that in FY24, EPF recorded investment income of RM74.46bil, up 11% from RM66.99bil in FY23.

Its total payout in FY24 is RM73.24bil (98.4%), compared to RM57.81bil (RM86.3%) in FY23.

Who Will Win The Trade War?

On 4th of March 2025, US has imposed 25% tariffs on import from Canada & Mexico, and at the same time increased tariffs on China import to 20% from 10% just imposed a month ago.

The stock market reacted negatively as there are lots of uncertainty.

Trump stressed that the tariffs will revive US manufacturing sector and create more jobs, and will not increase the cost of living of its citizens. Is it true?

Anyway, it's almost certain that those countries being imposed the tariffs will suffer, and they will retaliate with tariffs against the US.

In the end, who will win? Or may be there will be no winner?

My Portfolio Feb25

Summary of February 2025

Portfolio @ End of Feb25

Feb25 is a very bad month to my portfolio which fell 6.8%, with YTD loss widened to 8.8%.

As you can see there was only one stock which made a tiny gain in the month while the rest all suffered loss which a few losing more than 10%.

This is probably due to the Trump effect which causes lots of uncertainty.

Are investors bracing themselves for a bear market in 2025?

Case Study: Property Investment No.1

 

My first property purchase, which was also my biggest investment at that time, was a home for my family.

It was in August of 2009 which was around 15.5 years ago.

The property is a newly launched double storey semi-detached (DSSD) house in a gated community bought at a price of RM348,000 directly from property developer.

I was lucky because at that time the property boom was just about to start.

The selling price of new similar properties in the vicinity increased rapidly, in which new launches were snapped up like buying vegetables in the market.

At the time when I moved into my new house in the fourth quarter of 2012, the market value was already close to RM500,000.

Currently the launching price of new smaller size DSSD in the same area is well above RM700,000.