KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia ended lower on Tuesday, with the key index slipping 0.45 per cent amid a lack of catalysts and mild profit-taking following recent gains, in contrast with regional markets. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) declined 7.97 points to 1,672.35 from Monday’s close of 1,680.32. The benchmark index started the day 1.91 points lower at 1,678.41 and moved between 1,667.82 and 1,679.26 throughout the day. On the broader market, gainers beat losers by 624 to 506, while some 531 counters were unchanged, 988 untraded, and 11 suspended. Turnover improved to 2.66 billion units worth RM2.76 billion against Monday’s 2.53 billion units worth RM2.40 billion.
Quoted directly from today's The Star Business..... links over here IN general, most people have the impression that the money placed in the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) always generates lower returns compared with the returns from their own investments. In this article, we will look into the returns from EPF versus returns from the KL Composite Index (KLCI). We assume that investors are able to generate their own returns equivalent to the returns from the KLCI. Based on our 23 years of data compilation, it is generally true that the average returns generated from EPF are lower than KLCI returns. From 1986 to 2008, the average return of EPF was 6.7%, 2.3 percentage points lower than the average return of 9% from the KLCI ( see table ). However, most people do not understand the risks they need to undertake when they invest by themselves. The standard deviation of EPF is only 1.5%, 22.2 percentage points lower than the standard deviation of 23.7% from the KLCI. We use stand...