Unit trust, is it a good choice?

I'd attended a seminar/training organized by my uncle, which is an experienced financial planner. The seminar is to introduce about an investment product, which is unit trust or mutual fund.

I did mentioned in my blog earlier that the percentage of the funds to outperform the market is very less. And to pick a reliable unit trust, one need to really study the fund's performance history. Instead, i would like to invest in stock market by myself which i know it would give me better return.

I did asked some questions during the seminar, and it started to change my perspective on unit trust. 

Firstly, there are many people around that might not really good in investment, and most of them just leave their saving in the bank, mostly fixed deposit. Well, with the low interest, it even not able to cater your personal inflation. 

Also, nowadays Malaysian able to invest in unit trust through EPF (Employee Provident Fund). This is a great news, interest that you earned from EPF is averagely 5.25%, and it can merely cater the personal inflation rate. So why don't we go and look for a unit trust that can averagely give you better return each year, probably 10% will do. I didn't aim for very high return, as i think for high return investment, i already had it, with my investment in stock market. And i prefer to have a consistent return of ~10% with the risk that i can afford, as i'm not the one that determine which or where to invest. :) Anyway, i did study unit trust these few days, and able to look for some funds that return ~10% annually.

Below is a table refers to the total base savings that you must have in your EPF account 1 before you are allowed to invest in unit trust.

Base Savings Table for EPF

You can only invest 20% of the amount after you deduct the total in account 1 with the base saving. Let's say you are 29 years old now, and in your EPF account 1, you have total of RM36,000. So meaning that you can only invest RM4000 (20%x(RM36000-RM16000)). This seems to be not much, but you can invest every 3 months! You can always withdraw 20% of the total in your account 1 after deduct it with the base saving every 3 months, and it will end up as a big amount.

Well, i decided to invest in unit trust with my EPF, as i want to earn >5.25% each year with my EPF contribution. For those that are not familiar, it will be wise to find a reliable agent that can provide professional advice per your requirement. Also please bear in mind, invest in unit trust should be long term, as the service charge that you need to pay for the first time is 3%, and there will be management fee ~1.5%, so it is not worth for me if you just plan to invest for short term.