Performance profiling of the unit trust funds in Malaysia with data mining techniques

Background: Millennials are exposed to many investment opportunities, and they have shown their interest in gaining more income via investments. One popular investment avenue is unit trusts. However, analysing unit trusts’ financial data and gaining valuable insights may not be as simple because not everyone has the required financial knowledge and adequate time to perform in-depth analytics on the numerous financial data. Furthermore, it is not easy to compile the performance of each unit trust available in Malaysia. The primary objective of this research is to identify unit trust funds that provide higher returns than their average peers via performance profiling. Methods: This research proposed a performance profiling on Malaysia unit trust funds using the two data mining techniques, i.e., Expectation Maximisation (EM) and Apriori, to assist amateur retail investors to choose the right unit trust based on their risk tolerance. EM clustered the unit trust funds in Malaysia into several groups based on their annual financial performances. This was then followed by finding the rules associated with each cluster by applying Apriori. The resulted rules shall serve the purpose of profiling the clustered unit trust funds. Retail investors can then select their preferred unit trust funds based on the performance profile of the clusters. Results: The yearly average total return of the financial year 2018 and 2019 was used to evaluate unit trust funds’ performance in the clusters. The evaluation results indicated that the profiling could provide valuable and insightful information to retail investors with varying risk appetites. Conclusions: This research has demonstrated that the financial performance profiling of unit trust funds could be acquired via data mining approaches. This valuable information is crucial to unit trust investors for selecting suitable funds in investment.

Performance of Unit Trust Funds between Conventional and Islamic Funds in Malaysia using Data Envelopment Analysis

This study aims to analyse the current performance of unit trust funds between conventional and Islamic funds using data envelopment analysis because most Malaysians are incapable to distinguish between conventional and Islamic unit trust funds performances since they tend to assume both funds perform similarly. This paper uses 20 authorised funds by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) for three years by using trailing data that consists of volatility element as input and total return as output. Indeed, the funds selected do not mix asset classes of funds, instead relying solely on equity funds to create a fair and reasonable ranking. The study employs Data Envelopment Analysis by testing two different models, namely Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes input oriented (CCR-I) model and Banker, Charnes, and Cooper input oriented (BCC-I) model. The use of two models in this study is to ensure that the results of the ranking analysis are more accurate and precise. Both models employ the input-oriented model function as a means of maximising efficiency in order to increase the number of fairies. The efficiency of Islamic funds is more consistent than that of conventional funds for both models, as several Islamic funds maintain their position at the top of the efficient rank. However, there is a significant increase in conventional funds because 80% of the selected conventional funds that are not efficient in the CCR-I model achieve the efficiency level in the BCC-I model. As a result, there are four unit trust funds that are consistent in occupying efficiency level when tested for both CCR-I model and BCC-I model whereby three out of four are Islamic funds while the other is conventional fund. The Islamic funds consist of Apex Dana Aslah, BIMB i Growth Fund, and Maybank Malaysia Growth-I Fund while KAF Tactical Fund is conventional fund. Ultimately, it is concluded that Islamic funds perform better than conventional funds in Malaysia for the 3 years period ending 31 March 2021.

Analysis of Factors That Influences Customer Retention in Unit Trust Industry

ABSTRACT Relationship Marketing has been perceived as an incredible method to fabricate a restrictive long haul relationship with their customers in the present powerful worldwide commercial center. Service quality is becoming increasingly important to a growing number of businesses. A unit trust's prosperity relies upon the skill and experience of the organization that oversees it. The aim of this research is to emphasise the significance of service quality in unit trust industry. This research was conducted using a questionnaire that was distributed to 200 customers of unit trust agents in Penang. It can be concluded that relationship marketing is essentially corresponded with service quality and consumer loyalty as well as client retention.

Understanding Predictors That Influences Relationship Marketing in Unit Trust Industry

Relationship marketing has been recognised as an excellent way to build an exclusive long-term relationship with their clients in today's dynamic global marketplace. Personal connection is becoming increasingly important to a growing number of businesses. A unit trust is an unincorporated common store structure that enables assets to hold resources and give benefits that go directly to singular unit proprietors as opposed to reinvesting them once again into the reserve.The aim of this research is to emphasise the significance of personal connection and unit trust in the service industry. This research was conducted using a questionnaire that was distributed to 200 customers of unit trust agents in Penang. It can be concluded that relationship marketing is essentially corresponded with personal connection and consumer loyalty as well as client retention.

Review of Mutual Funds Investment in India

The Indian mutual fund's industry, which started its excursion with the foundation of the Unit Trust of India in 1964, has seen unobtrusive development lately. There has been developing both regarding AUM just as the assortment of items advertised. As on December 2015, the investors in India have a choice to look over in excess of 1,000 of mutual funds plans spread across 44 fund houses with a complete AUM estimation of '13.46 lakh crores. The passage of unfamiliar players has prompted the presentation of an assortment of inventive items to suit the developing necessities of Indian investors. The Indian mutual fund's industry was discovered to be overwhelmed by institutional investors.

INVESTMENT DECISION MAKING TOWARDS INVESTING IN ISLAMIC UNIT TRUSTS AMONGST WOMEN

The differences in skill expectations and knowledge are amongst factors that contribute to the variances when men and women choose financial products. Women are claimed to be risk averse, somewhat insecure, lacking self-confidence and interest in financial investment products. Nevertheless, the evolving working and educational environment has changed this stereotype, wherein women are increasingly more educated, knowledgeable, and are more exposed to investments. Gender equality between men and women in terms of the volume of investments has turned into a requirement that boosts economic growth with people being the most important factor to contribute through investing habit. This cannot be realised if only men are involved in investment. Financial institutions aim certain figures of targeted investment volume each year. As such, this study identified the factors of women investments, particularly in Islamic unit trusts. A total of 201 respondents were selected via the convenience sampling technique. The Likert scale questionnaires were analysed using SMART PLS software. As a result, several investment behaviours, including investment objectives, return expectations, awareness, and risk attitude, emerged as factors that influenced women investors to choose unit trusts. The study outcomes are beneficial in devising effective strategies that may attract women to invest in Islamic unit trust. Besides, certain agencies should conduct campaigns or seminars on financial literacy for this potential sector, so as to enhance their knowledge in investing in Islamic unit trusts.

A comparative analysis of Islamic unit trust portfolio using value at risk methodologies

Islamic unit trust is a sunrise industry in the Malaysian capital market over the last decades to fulfill the demand from its Muslim investors. Muslim investors are only willing to invest their capital if the investment does not conflict with their religious beliefs, namely Islam. Previously, most of the studies focused to evaluate the performance of unit trust funds relative to the market as a whole. Meanwhile, it is also important for investors to accurately measure their downside risk because it is closely related to their future losses. Thus, Value at Risk (VaR) concept was introduced to calculate monthly risk for an Islamic unit trust portfolio using the three standard approaches which are Delta Normal, Historical Simulation and Monte Carlo Simulation. Results show that Monte Carlo Simulation is the best method to quantify risk exposure as the average Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) is the lowest compared to the other two methods. The findings also highlight the importance of embedding risk into investment analyses and provide insights to investors who are considering Shariah-compliant equity funds as a potential income-generating instrument. Therefore, financial consultants or fund managers can make informed decisions in setting up a well-diversified unit trust fund’s portfolio for their Muslim investors by applying the concept of VaR and its methodologies.