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Nearly half of all CPFIS investors who sold their Ordinary Account (OA) investments in the year ended Sept 30 - 440,000 CPF members, or 49 per cent - have lost money, up from 43 per cent a year earlier.
One such investor, schoolteacher Catherine Lee, 40, got cold feet after her CPFIS investment lost 30 per cent. She could not stomach any more losses.
'I made a loss of $10,000 after selling off my unit trust investment in September. The market was very volatile. I preferred to bite the bullet and realise the loss rather than to wait and see.'
Another 279,000 or 31 per cent of OA investors made modest profits but would have been better off, or done just as well, leaving the cash to earn the Ordinary Account 2.5 per cent interest rate. This was up from 29 per cent a year earlier.
Only about 174,000 members, or 20 per cent - down from 28 per cent - made profits from their CPF savings over and above the 2.5 per cent they could have earned anyway.
For everyone else, who left their investments in place rather than sell, the picture was also quite bleak.
Overall, CPFIS investments in stocks, units trusts and property funds were well in the red, on paper. Only bonds, as well as gold, were in the black.
The CPF board attributed the poor performance to the financial meltdown which has hurt investment returns.
'The market has turned sharply from the bull market in 2007 to a bear market this year. Well-known financial institutions taking massive write-downs coupled with a series of collapses such as Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae, Lehman Brothers and AIG injected much panic and volatility in the market,' it said.
Global bourses dropped sharply with one widely-used benchmark, the MSCI World Index down by 28.4 per cent and MSCI AC Asia excluding Japan down by 40.9 per cent. The benchmark Straits Times Index was down by 36 per cent.
Another grim fact for investors to keep in mind: Markets have fallen quite a bit further since the Sept 30 year-end for the CPF Board figures.
The CPF report gave a detailed breakdown of the various investment vehicles under the CPFIS and the number of members who invested in each.
The report indicated that the most popular investment vehicles are insurance policies and unit trusts.
Out of a total of $27.5 billion from CPF-Ordinary Account that has been used for investments, a massive $17.54 billion has gone into insurance products, up by 3.7 per cent from previously - including investments in endowment policies, annuities and investment-linked insurance plans.
This is followed by $5.22 billion in unit trusts and $4.53 billion in shares. More members also invested in gold, exchange-traded funds and property funds.
On the other hand, the CPF Board noted that the amount invested in fixed deposits under the CPF Investment Scheme-Ordinary Account fell dramatically by about 90 per cent to $28 million.
'This was because recent fixed deposit interest rates had been lower than the Ordinary Account interest rate. In addition, CPF Board has required fixed deposits included under the CPF Investment Scheme to be automatically renewed only if the new fixed deposit interest rate exceeds the base CPF interest rate from May 1 last year,' said the CPF Board.
The investment preferences of members who used their CPF-Special Account money is unchanged.
As at Sept 30, CPF members had withdrawn $7.8 billion from the CPF-Special Account for investments, of which nearly 80 per cent, or $6.19 billion, went into insurance policies. About $1.61 billion went into unit trusts.
In the year under review, more CPF funds than in the previous year had been pumped into the CPFIS by members.
The total sums invested under the CPF Investment Scheme-OA and Special Account were up 4.5 per cent and 19.1 per cent, respectively. The CPF website showed the funds still available for investment are $37.91 billion and $11.37 billion from CPF-Ordinary Account and CPF-Special Account, respectively.
