In celebration of Women’s Month last March, I took time off to go to First Metro Asset Management Inc.’s (FAMI) event called Smart Women Invest. I loved it that they had an event that encourages women to understand more about saving and investing.
As women, I think that understanding how investments work is important. This is not only for our own personal benefit, but to secure the future of our loved ones.
I remember the first time that I was exposed to investments. It was already late in my life. When I was 27 years old and working in a bank, I got my first exposure to investments and investment vehicles. Prior to that, my parents placed my savings in a time deposit account. Not to say that this was not important. It was, and I appreciated it. Looking back though, I should have taken bolder steps earlier to understand how money works and how I could have earned more if I had invested my money.
Today, I have 5 different policies and have tried multiple kinds of vehicles. I tried different kinds of investments because I wanted to choose the perfect one that fit each of my investment objectives. One of the investments that I have had since three years ago is a mutual fund under First Metro Asset Management Inc. or FAMI.
What is a Mutual Fund?
For those who want to know what a Mutual Fund is, a Mutual Fund is an investment vehicle made up of a pool of funds collected from many individual investors for the purpose of investing in securities such as stocks, bonds, money market instruments and similar assets.
Check out this video:
Why should you invest in Mutual Funds?
There are several reasons of why you’d want to invest and you can check it out here to see if it’s something that will fit your investment objective.
- It is professionally managed. The investment decisions are based on extensive knowledge and research of market conditions and on the financial performance of individual companies and securities. You need not research on what’s happening in the market because it’s managed already by people who know what they are doing.
- For Diversification. We all know that you should not place all your eggs in one basket. Since Mutual funds is basically a diversified portfolio already, it reduces the risk of losses from securities with gains in others.
- Offers Liquidity. You can convert investments to cash anytime. I remember withdrawing from my mutual fund some years ago since I badly needed cash. Now, I’ve managed to pick it up once more by regularly putting in money into it again.
- Safe investments. Mutual funds are regulated by the SEC or Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Company Act and its implementing rules and guidelines.
- Shared information. FAMI shares information about the NAVPS or Net Asset Value Per Share every business day.
- Its Tax Free. Income generated from mutual funds are exempted from capital gains tax as stipulated in the Republic Act No. 8424 Section 32(B)(7)(H).
Check and see if these features are aligned and will eventually help you with your investment goals.
For my own personal investment, I opened a Save and Learn Equity Fund. Here are some information about the fund that I have:
What I loved about this is that the minimum investment is at Php 5000 and I could add to it anytime. And the minimum additional investment is at Php 1000. The way I purchase units is via Bills Payment in the UnionBank Mobile App. This makes it more convenient for me to add funds (purchase units).
Here are the details of the other funds / products that they have.
I was also given the opportunity to open a First Metro Consumer Fund (see details above) when I attended the FAMI event. The fund is comprised of stocks capitalizing on a consumption theme, with high revenue exposure to key PH industries benefitting from the structure of the Philippine family’s consumption expenditures.
Check out the video of Rose Fausto, taken during FAMI’s Smart Women Invest Event:
Let’s see how this fund performs.
If you have any questions about FAMI’s products and services, please feel free to visit https://fami.com.ph. You can also visit https://www.facebook.com/firstmetrofunds/
