By: Leong Sze Hian
The Straits Times article “CPF Investment Scheme funds up 3.4% in 2nd quarter” stated that “taking an even longer view, CPFIS-included funds posted strong growth of 16.91 per cent on average for the three years to June 30, led by a gain of 17.97 per cent from unit trusts and 16.39 per cent from ILPs.”
The article further claimed: “Equities recorded growth of 20.04 per cent, while bond funds were up 8.91 per cent over the three years. By contrast, MSCI AC Asia ex-Japan Index rallied 29.02 per cent and Citigroup WGBI TR rose 7.17 per cent.”
Statistics disappeared after 11 years?
In this connection, I understand that for the first 11 years of the scheme which started in 1993 – annual statistics were published as to the percentage of CPFIS investors who had realised returns that did not beat the 2.5 per cent interest of the CPF Ordinary Account.
Funds’ performance?
What is the historical annualised return on the CPFIS funds since the inception of the scheme?
What about unrealised returns?
What about the statistics for the unrealised returns?
If we combine the realised and unrealised returns – what percentage of investors had returns that were not more then 2.5 per cent, since the inception of the scheme in 1993?
In this connection, do soverign wealth funds report just their realised returns, without their unrealised returns?
Piecemeal selective statistics?
Arguably, why do we seem to be getting piecemeal statistics, without the most important ones in order for us to make more meaningful comparisons, analysis and decisions?
As an analogy – if we invest periodically, sell some of our investments periodically – and you only tell us the returns of those that we have sold but not those that we are still keeping – how do we know whether overall we are making money or not?
And then you tell us the returns of “funds” for this year or the last three years only, without the returns in history – how do we make a meaningful comparison with our investments?