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Investing in gold in Malaysia

Gold is the most popular precious metals for investment and investing in gold has become the “talk of the town” since a couple of years ago…at least, in Malaysia. Before that, investing in gold is not really that easy. But now, it’s as easy as investing in stocks and mutual fund.

So why do people invest in gold?

• To diversify their investment.
• To protect against crises such as economic, political or social crisis (social unrest, wars and others tend to drag the stock market down…but gold tend to be more stable).
• Because it’s simple and straightforward.
• Because the price chart is easily obtainable.

From what I’ve observed, gold investing can be highly speculative but if you are investing for the long term, gold price will definitely go up. And rather than investing in stocks (which you are relying on companies), funds (which are relying on the fund managers and stocks), currencies (which you are relying on the governments for not screwing up) or real estate properties (which sometimes depends on luck since cheap prices are only available for new housing areas), investing in gold does not have so many external factors involved. True, whatever goes down will go up and vice versa. But for a precious metal which will decrease in amount (there’s only that much gold in the world), the price will still go up, albeit slowly.

So my advise to you and myself, is to look at this possible investment option as a way to diversify my portfolio away from funds and stocks. Don’t buy a lot in one go. Just slowly accumulate little by little. And you don’t need to keep all the gold and gold bars at your home. You can let the banks to manage them

There’s a very good article written by KCLau on gold investment in Malaysia. It’s a very good read. For those who are interested to invest gold in Public Bank, you can refer to this link Invest Gold in Malaysia through Public Bank. Maybank also provides such service and the minimum is 1g of gold, as compared to Public Bank’s 10g.

Take a look and who knows maybe gold investing is the one for you (it’s a good learning step for beginners as well).

Good luck

p/s… just checked with Maybank today. The min investment is 1g but there’s no way you can do it online. Meaning, even if you want to buy or sell 1g, you will have to bring your passbook to any of MBB’s branches, and do the transaction there. Kinda troublesome :T

p/s…. you can check MBB’s gold price HERE.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (Dec 2011)

My blogs, including this one, has been wiped off in a recent technical glitch faced by my hosting company. They did not have any backup so everything has been deleted.

Fortunately, the CEO tried his best to dig the details from the older servers and managed to restore the data before Nov 2010. Unfortunately, all my blog posts within the 1 year is now gone, forever.

I will cut down more on blogging from now onwards. It’s a very big blow for me and I don’t really have time to set everything up again.

Anyway, since the last post on FD was back in 2010, here’s an updated FD list for December 2011.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	3.05	3.10	3.25	3.35	3.60
Alliance Bank	3.00	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.25
AmBank	3.00	3.00	3.15	3.15	3.20
CIMB Bank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
Citibank	2.90	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
Hong Leong Bank	2.90	2.95	2.95	2.95	3.10
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.75	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.15
Maybank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
OCBC Bank (M)	2.85	2.95	3.00	3.00	3.15
Public Bank	3.00	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
RHB Bank	3.00	3.05	3.20	3.20	3.30
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.95	3.00	3.10	3.10	3.25
The Bank of Nova Scotia	3.05	3.05	3.10	3.10	3.15
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.90	2.90	2.95	3.00	3.00
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.90	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.15

 

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (August 2010)

In March 2010, I compiled a list of Fixed Deposit rates in Malaysia HERE. The overnight interest rate has since changed and here’s the updated table.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.80	2.85	3.00	3.05	3.30
Alliance Bank	2.75	2.75	2.90	3.00	3.10
AmBank	2.75	2.75	2.90	3.00	3.10
CIMB Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
Citibank	2.65	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.90
EON Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.85	3.00
Hong Leong Bank	2.65	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.55	2.70	2.70	2.70	2.85
Maybank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
OCBC Bank (M)	2.60	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85
Public Bank	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
RHB Bank	2.75	2.75	2.95	2.95	3.10
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.70	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.75	2.75	2.80	2.80	2.85
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.65	2.65	2.70	2.75	2.75
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.60	2.65	2.70	2.70	2.85

Hope it helps.

Fixed Deposit (FD) rates of banks in Malaysia (March 2010)

In November 2009, I compiled a list of Fixed Deposit rates in Malaysia HERE. Recently, the Central Bank (Bank Negara) has increased the overnight interest rates, and this has caused our country’s FD rates to go up – but not by much.

Bank	1 month	3 months	6 months	9 months	12 months
Affin Bank	2.25	2.30	2.45	2.50	2.75
Alliance Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.40	2.75
AmBank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
CIMB Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
Citibank	2.25	2.25	2.35	2.35	2.60
EON Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
Hong Leong Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
HSBC Bank Malaysia	2.25	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.60
Maybank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
OCBC Bank (M)	2.25	2.30	2.30	2.30	2.60
Public Bank	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.60
RHB Bank	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60
Standard Chartered Bank (M)	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.40	2.60
The Bank of Nova Scotia	2.25	2.30	2.35	2.35	2.75
The Royal Bank of Scotland	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60
United Overseas Bank (M)	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.60

Hope it helps.

First thing to do in your investment journey

Most people want to see their money grow, but most of them do not know how to start. So they look into equity funds, bonds, fixed deposits, properties (most people do this now) and stocks (and most people are fearful of this). But while they are busy doing this or listening to others, there are 2 other things which they should look into before they start looking at all those investment types.

Debts

Some debts can deal a killing blow to your investment plan especially those related to credit cards or those which have very high interest charges. It’s advisable to clear those off FIRST before you put your money elsewhere. For example, if your debt’s interest rate is like 4-5%, but your FD return is only 2%, it means you’re actually losing money than earning money. If you can pump money into both sides, then fine. Just be sure never to neglect the former for the latter. Focus on how to stop losing money, then only to how to earn more money.

Insurance

This is equally important. Life insurance and medical insurance are very very important. I can’t stress this enough. There are people who only focus on how to grow their money that they neglect these 2. And when they’re hit with some issues which don’t allow them to work, their dependents will suffer since there’s no income. Or, when they’re hit with some serious illnesses but do not have the money to pay for their medical bills. In the end, they need to take out all their personal savings in order to pay for the medical bills. Yes, growing your money is important, but thinking about your dependents and the ability to keep you healthy are even more important (especially if your company does not give you a medical card). Look into what kind of life insurance you should buy here – How much insurance do you need?

Once you’ve given thoughts (and actions) to these 2, you can start planning the second step of your investment journey. Always remember that your investment journey will be greatly jeopardized if you are not able to generate income, or something else is draining your income away. So do take note. These 2 should be the FIRST thing you should look into while planning for your investment journey.

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