Ethical Flavour in MFs
The concept of a socially responsible fund was hitherto unknown to Indian investors. Ethical funds, as they are popularly called, cater to the need of a population segment with personal ethical codes, which are not in line with normal investment practices. These funds consider environmental, social and animal cruelty issues before investing in a company.

For Children - With love from MFs
Mutual Fund schemes focusing upon the clientele in select age group are not common as of now. However in recent times various mutual funds have lined up schemes targeting children. Presently we have Children’s schemes from UTI, Kothari Pioneer, HDFC, IDBI and Tata Mutual Funds.

How to evaluate a Pension Plan
There are many options available to an individual intending to plan for his retirement. Be it PPF, ULIP, NSC’s etc. Most retirement options fall into two categories,-those which promise a fixed assured return and those, like pension plans, which offer non-assured returns. At present, UTI Retirement Benefit Plan and Kothari Pioneer Pension plan fill the retirement mutual fund void.

ELSS - A good tax Planning instrument
Though promising easy liquidity and a positive stance towards interest rates, the RBI has nevertheless not ruled out the possibility of quick reversal in current policy thus signifying its intents to keep in tune with external changes in the international monetary system.

Squeezing liquidity out of liquid funds
Though promising easy liquidity and a positive stance towards interest rates, the RBI has nevertheless not ruled out the possibility of quick reversal in current policy thus signifying its intents to keep in tune with external changes in the international monetary system.

Advantage mutual funds
Mutual Funds continue to be unique financial tools in India. Periodic gyrations are as true for stock markets as for mutual funds. Why not apply the same logic to Mutual Funds? Mutual Funds have not failed in any country where they work within a regulatory framework. Their future is bright.

Bet your money on diversified funds
The average appreciation of the top-50 scrips was 9.7 per cent. Only 17 of these managed to better the diversified mutual funds average score. Not more than 10 could outperform the top fund, and about 25 were worse off than the worst-performing fund.

Exchange Traded Funds, will they take off ?
The US experiences suggest that despite all its charm over the mutual funds, ETFs have not gained much favour from investors. Investors still prefer actively managed mutual funds to ETFs. Whether the Indian investors would embrace this new baby or not, would be interesting to watch

How to calculate Mutual Fund Risk?
Well any investment decision has to carry a certain amount of risk-doesn’t it? So, it means that mutual funds also carry a risk profile with them. So how do you assess your mutual fund’s risk profile? Some of the tools available to assess your scrip’s riskiness can also be used to assess a mutual fund's risk (or its close cousin, volatility).

How to Diversify Your Stocks?
We’ve often heard of "the secret of successful investing is to diversify their risk" - so how does one go about this? And what does diversification really mean - does it only mean that one should spread ones portfolio across various types of assets, in terms of cash, debt, shares, mutual funds, deposits etc? Or can one diversify ones portfolio even further?

Look Before You Invest
The mutual funds industry in India has also finally come of age. An indication of this is the number and variety of funds offered by the issuers, as well as the depth of the market in terms of the secondary trading. So today one doesn’t need Rs 100,000 minimum to start investing in shares of sensex pivotals. One can invest in them for as little as Rs 1000.

Size Matters
Investing is not about avoiding risk but avoiding it. To that end, an investor should always be reluctant to commit too much capital to a single position. Not because you don't believe in your flair for stock picking, but because sometimes the best way to manage risk is not to take it in the first place.

Is it Pharma's Turn Now?
Currently after cement and petrochemicals, the pharma is much a touted as a sector which is expected to experience a rally in the near future. Traditionally also the Indian pharma sector has attracted good valuations. Due to its export orientation, low costs and the product patents rather than process patents in force, this sector has done well for itself in India as well as overseas.

Go for Gilt
The lowering of interest rate by 150 basis points on small savings was a major measure taken by the FM in his budget of 2001-02. Other than lowering the bench mark for the cost of capital in the economy, this change also heralds a new era where progressively these rates will be lowered further. So, what does the small investor do in a scenario like this when his haven of fixed return tax free investment is threatened?

Dividend Stripping
Can dividends lead to a capital loss? Well looks like it. Finding a legal loophole, dividends declared by mutual funds are used as a means for writing of losses. In his budget of 1999, the FM had succumbed to the pressure of public demand and made the dividends declared by equity mutual funds tax free. Availing of this gesture, the clever and devious investor has today found a way to abuse this exemption.

Stocks or Stock Funds?
Should I dump those boring stock funds for a handful of shares in a few zesty companies?- Hasn’t this question arisen in your mind when you have decided to go in for equity related investments. And it is pretty clear that the movement in stock prices is  reflected in the corresponding funds after a time lag. So is it be better to go in for stocks or stock funds?

Lets Get Basic
Most of the investors would agree that equity funds have performed miserably over the last one year-isn’t that so? But a more discerning investor would beg to differ. Even in tough times like this he would have spotted the opportunity of making money-but how is this possible?

Mutual Expectations and Benefits
While the crash in IT share prices has resulted in a re-balancing of portfolios, action on the old economy front would further narrow the gap between the so called ‘click and mortar’ and ‘ brick and mortar’ companies-bringing with it a greater diversification in MF portfolios

Hidden Costs in Mutual Funds
For funds with higher turnovers, transaction costs can have a major impact on the cost of doing business. While this invisible cost is automatically reflected in the fund's performance results, that is no reason to ignore it. A look at the investment style will give you an idea of its portfolio reshuffle policy

MF NAVigation beyond NAVs
While selecting an MF investment performance of the fund/scheme in question over the past year would be a point in order. In a nutshell, a fund’s investment philosophy, consistency, levels of diversification, returns over market cycles is sine qua non of any mutual Fund investment

Are Sector Funds really Risky ?
Considering that the portfolios of most equity and balanced funds are not very different in terms of diversification from sector funds, the risk profile of these funds do not differ much. Hence though sector funds are believed to be for the risk takers, in reality all growth funds are just as risky

Go get a Tech Fund
Almost all technology funds today have huge exposures to technology majors in India who have seen substantial erosion in their values since their peaks in early 2000. What it effectively means is that downside risk for these tech funds from these points is extremely limited and upside phenomenal

Benchmarking your Mutual Fund
You can't tell how well a mutual fund has performed by studying its historical returns alone. Instead, you should compare those returns with the returns over the same period of an appropriate benchmark, or measuring stick. How to arrive at the appropriate benchmark is the tricky issue

When to sell your Mutual Funds
Like equities, the key in a mutual fund is also when to exit. Most investors tend to panic and exit when the NAV is falling. Actually, falling NAVs provide a delicious opportunity as long the fundamental portfolio of the MF is sound. Learn how to how the cardinal blunders

8 Steps to Mutual Fund Nirvana
The worst aspect of trading funds is that it allows the counterproductive emotions of investing to supersede the productive economics of investing. The dream of a perfect plan will never come true if mutual fund units are traded as if they were stocks. And many more rules to Nirvana

Benefit from Mutual Fund SIPs
Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) as they are popularly known, provide the dual benefit of dollar cost averaging and compulsory savings. It is not surprising then that more and more investors are opting for these plans. Find out more and get the SIP advantage

Avoid tax - Get SWP Smart
Tax outflow under an MF MIP can be 20 times the tax outflow under the Systematic Withdrawal Plan. Of course this advantage will diminish as time passes but it provides a good avenue for investors with a medium perspective to save on tax. So go ahead and get smart with SWPs

Index Funds - Who cares for slumps
The secret of index funds is to stay invested. If you want to weather the market's inevitable down cycles, index funds offer a simple way to share in the stock market's long-term growth potential. Index funds can give you that extra edge, an idea whose time has finally come

Understanding Mutual Fund Accounting
Investors can take an intelligent decision about mutual fund investing by understanding and reading between the lines of a mutual fund annual report. How to interpret NAVs and portfolio changes and more importantly how to judge the health of a MF scheme

HDFC Growth Fund plays it Smart
Ever heard of a growth fund with a 50% exposure to liquid assets. Will drive a liquid fund to shame isn't it? Well that is exactly what the HDFC Growth Fund has done. Out of a Rs.132 crore corpus, the HDFC growth fund has allocated a whopping 50% net to call market with a sound logic to it

MIPs have Niche Markets to Play
Investors seem to have realised that fancy names do not deliver the goods. What they are looking is reasonable yields (more than bank interest rates), for the investments. They found this facility in Income funds and more specifically MIPs. Watch out for the trend of tomorrow

UTI defaults on Rajlakshmi
The decision by UTI to unilaterally terminate the Rajlakshmi scheme may be technically justified but ethically questionable. Sentimental dreams of many Indian families have had to bite the dust. As the dust settles, investors need to draw hard lessons and realize the risk return trade-off of UTI units...........more

Planning a mutual fund portfolio
Investors planning a MF portfolio are faced with a new choice, how much to diversify within mutual funds. Concentration to any one scheme, AMC or any one investment style can be disastrous. There are some basic investment rules that any mutual fund investor should keep in mind ..........more

MF Lock-in : To be or not to be
The recent dispute between Kwality Ice Creams and Sebi raises an interesting debate on whether investors can forfeit an IT exemption originally opted for. Actually permitting it gives the investor much greater flexibility in deciding upon his financial strategy. The SEBI needs to take a relook ..........more

Strategizing debt funds
The recent trend among the debt funds has been to reduce the average maturity profile of the debt fund. Makes a lot of sense when the interest rate scenario is highly volatile since it reduces the inherent risk in debt fund investments. Investors would do well to take a cue from this ..........more

MF analysis the Crisil way
The recent ranking of mutual funds by Crisil provides perhaps the first ever scientific ranking of mutual fund performance. The survey underscores the fact that mutual fund analysis goes far beyond mere returns. A plethora of risks like market risk, interest rate risk and liquidity risk are just as crucial...........more

Choosing your Mutual Fund
When financial markets are in a state of flux, how does one make a choice of his ideal mutual fund. Balanced funds are the flavor of the day. But investors need to be careful while selecting balanced funds since the characteristics of the debt and equity holdings matter. Some simple rules.........more

Tips on Mutual Fund investing
While investing in mutual funds, most investors commit the cardinal sin of assuming it to be a risk free investment avenue. But that is far from the truth. Investors need to follow a set of simple rules to understand, evaluate and adapt mutual funds to their risk-return requirements.........more

US64 - Risky yet preferred
Despite the US-64 fiasco of 1998 the flagship fund of UTI seems to continue to command investor interest and faith. Has the US-64 acted in accordance with the Deepak Parekh committee recommendations? Is US-64 as safe and secure as investors believe it to be..........more

UTI Assured Myth
The decision of UTI to retract on its guaranteed returns on the Monthly Income Plan (MIP), in the light of the hike in the dividend tax on debt funds, could prima be a body blow for the investors. However, investors need not worry. At a comparative level, UTI's MIP continues to be attractive in post tax terms .......more

Sebi No to Stripping
Sebi has proposed to regulate the rampant dividend stripping in open ended funds since it leads to extremely volatility during dividend dates and is against the interests of the small unitholders. But the question is whether it is the job of Sebi to police dividend stripping or is it best left to the dictats of the market .........more

Mutual Strategy
IT funds which were the darling of investors a few months ago have suddenly fallen out of favor. Investors do not need to be at a loss for options. Cheap valuations for commodity stocks offer the investors a golden opportunity to reduce their risk and improve yields by opting for balanced funds ........ more

Punter vs Sensex
IT stocks for long have remained the lifeline of the sensex. They still are, more so considering the enthusiasm of the BSE in including IT and media stocks in the Sensex. But the question is whether this argument of the sensex dancing to the tunes of the IT sector a myth or a reality? .....more

Say Cheese to FM
Any ordinary investor would be jumping with joy for the unexpected interim dividends that companies are declaring. Interim dividends of 100-150% have become common these days. Apart from the dividend tax angle, the valuation implications of this interim dividend phenomenon are worth noting .....more

Fund Watch - DSP
DSP-Merrill Lynch ranks second (next only to Alliance) among all foreign private mutual fund families. How have the various funds in the DSP family performed and what are the strategies of this fund. A statistical analysis of the performance of various DSP schemes. To understand their performance read on .....more