I understand what you want to express. Unrealized gains are paper money and if you want to use that physical money that you can hold on your hand, you need to sell the shares. But we don’t need to be that technical in explaining those. Gains realized or unrealized is still money, at one point in time. The money is real for everybody and it is money physically represented by digits on the screen, it just changes because of the nature of our investments. But it doesn’t make it any less important or less valuable or less real just because it changes in value or expressed in paper money.

@laurent,
It’s BPI’s Philippine Index Mutal Fund

That’s what I’m trying to say. As far as the investing mentality goes in this country, “the interest I make from my TD or savings account is mine.” Which is not the case at all for stocks/bonds/funds…

Part of the process in any investing is the research. Be sure to read their prospectus. They will explain what are their fees and how they are calculated. Different companies have different policies so you need to take initiative in research.