Investors should avoid jumping from their current funds into those that have outperformed lately, advises Arnav Pandya, a certified financial planner.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
Invest only if you wish to go overweight on the sector.
While Angel One and Unifi Capital have obtained the final licence, Jio BlackRock, Capitalmind, Choice International and Cosmea Financial Holdings have received in-principle approvals.
If you want to buy into the stock markets don't wait for tomorrow. The right time to buy stocks is NOW. And here's why...
wSe believe that investing at its core is a rather simple activity. If investors stick to the basics, they are likely to do well for themselves over longer time frames.
The weakening of inflation, prospects of economic growth, geopolitical uncertainty and comfortable system liquidity may result in the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to cut the repo rate by another 25 basis points, opine top economists. They also said the external economic pressures like trade policies and others would require continued RBI's accommodative stance and policy support for the Indian industry to sustain the growth.
The Rs 38-trillion mutual fund (MF) industry is going through a new fund offer (NFO) rush. Since July 1, the industry has launched close to 70 NFOs. This follows the completion of a near three-month embargo period when the industry had vowed to not launch any new offerings till the time it implemented norms around pooling of investor accounts. As a result, between April and June 2022, the industry was able to launch just three NFOs.
The global financial crisis is really the consequence of an excessively short-term outlook, propelled by greed and unstopped by regulation. The short-termism is due to several factors, not least of which is the enormous growth, in the past three decades, of the mutual fund industry.
This feat was achieved 25 years after the mutual funds industry was opened to private players. The industry now aims to achieve the next Rs 25 trillion in 5 years.
'Those satisfied with returns and not expecting further rally could be booking profits and also stopping SIPs.'
The last fiscal marked the fourth consecutive year of loss of folios by mutual funds.
'It could tempt investors to pick stocks that are not fundamentally sound.'
HDFC Asset Management Company (HDFC AMC) reported a healthy profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 430 crore for the July-September quarter (Q2) of financial year 2023-24 (FY24). It rose 20.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and decreased 8.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q). This was driven by good equity returns, leading to a sequential improvement in revenue yields.
A non-compliance with FATCA entails 30 per cent withholding tax on certain US source payments.
Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) have infused a record Rs 4.6 trillion into Indian equities over the course of Samvat 2080, marking the highest net annual investment in any Samvat to date. This robust domestic inflow has effectively counterbalanced the comparatively subdued investments from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), who contributed a net Rs 90,956 crore within the same timeframe. Against this backdrop, the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex indices are on track to achieve their best performance in three Samvat years, despite recent market corrections.
The mutual fund industry in June invested in companies like Piramal Healthcare, Reliance Petroleum, IFCI and Ashok Leyland. Interestingly, there was not much redemption pressure on them despite the Sensex skidding by another 2,570 points in June.
Seeking to tap a larger number of small investors, the mutual fund industry is going all out with investment plans of as low as Rs 100 per month and Reliance Mutual Fund has become the first fund house to launch such a scheme.
India's mutual fund industry, led by market leaders Reliance Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential and UTI MF, has witnessed a fall of over Rs 58,000 crore (Rs 580 billion) in its assets during March.Despite the fall, Reliance MF continued to be the most valued fund house in the country with Assets Under Management (AUM) of Rs 90,937.94 crore (Rs 909.37 billion) at the end of March.
Conservative industry estimates place the cash component of mutual fund houses at Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion). Fund houses had up to 15 per cent in cash, as per the April 30 figures. The cash component exceeded 15 per cent in as many as 30 diversified equity growth funds.
'...hesitate to support the risk-taking it requires.'
If they act now, they can reshape the strategic map of Asia without firing a shot. If they wait, the next opportunity will come only after a serious Taiwan Strait incident -- by which time the price will be far higher, and the room for boldness far smaller -- the opportunity may well be lost by then. The question is no longer whether this can or should be done, points out Varun Arya.
Riding the wave of the equity market, the mutual fund (MF) industry experienced double-digit growth in Samvat 2079, concluding the Hindu calendar year close to the Rs 50 trillion assets under management milestone. After a subdued 6 per cent growth in Samvat 2078, the industry's assets surged over 18 per cent last year to Rs 46.7 trillion. Industry players anticipate that Samvat 2080 will also be a fruitful year for the asset management industry, given the strong inflows from retail investors, particularly through the systematic investment plan route.
Smallcap mutual funds recorded net outflows for the first time in 30 months in March as investors pulled out money after the markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), warned against "froth" in the mid and smallcap space. Active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes raked in Rs 22,600 crore in March. The March inflow is 16 per cent lower than the two-year high inflow of Rs 26,860 crore in February, shows data from the Association of MFs in India (Amfi).
Rising gold prices and continuing investment flow in yellow metal has pushed the size of assets held through gold exchange traded funds to an all-time high of Rs 11,198 crore.
Investors may take a 5 to 10 per cent exposure to silver. 'Have a long-term investment horizon when investing in silver ETFs to ride out short-term market fluctuations.'
The mutual fund (MF) gross inflows through the systematic investment plan (SIP) route topped the Rs 20,000 crore mark for the first time in a calendar month as investors opened a record 6.4 million SIP accounts despite a spike in market volatility. The number of accounts opened last month was almost 50 per cent higher than the registrations seen in March. "India's MF industry has reached yet another milestone with the SIP book crossing above Rs 20,000 crore in April 2024.
Only a limited set of investors should invest directly in corporate bonds.
The decline in MF assets follows profit-booking seen on the bourses and jittery market sentiment that led to investors pulling out their money from equity-linked MF schemes.
The contribution from asset management companies (AMCs) has surpassed the Rs 3,000 crore target for the creation of a Rs 33,000 crore backstop facility for debt mutual funds (MFs). The initial corpus for the Corporate Debt Market Development Fund (CDMDF) is nearly Rs 3,100 crore, according to multiple government officials and AMC executives. "The fund is operational now. "The required corpus has been raised by AMCs and the remaining part (Rs 30,000 crore) is in the form of a guarantee from the government which will be activated only in case of a credit event," explained D P Singh, joint CEO and deputy MD, SBI MF.
For a new investor the right way to begin is consider well diversified funds that invest predominantly in large cap stock
Navi Mutual Fund (MF), among the latest entrants in the Rs 35-trillion industry, is looking to make a mark in the passive investment space, which is gaining traction in the country. The Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal-led fund house filed seven offer documents with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on a single day this week. Some of the schemes Navi MF plans to launch are Navi NASDAQ 100 Fund of Fund, Navi Nifty Commodities Index Fund, Navi Nifty 100 ESG Index Fund.
Riding on the back of fresh inflows into various schemes, the MF industry's AUM totalled Rs 7.20 lakh crore (Rs 7.2 trillion) -- a 24 per cent rise over the previous month, Crisil FundServices said in a report. During July, FIIs invested over Rs 11,600 crore (Rs 116 billion) in Indian equities, while MFs bought Rs 1,825 crore (Rs 18.25 billion) shares, as per data available on the website of Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked banks and other financial institutions to ensure that their customers must update nominees to help resolve the problem of unclaimed money in future. "I want the banking system, the financial ecosystem including the mutual funds, stock markets to keep in mind that when someone deals with his (customer's) money, the organisations will have to think about the future and ensure that customers nominate their heirs, give the name and address," Sitharaman said speaking at the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) in Mumbai. According to a report, the banking system alone has more than Rs 35,000 crore of unclaimed deposits, while the overall quantum of the unclaimed money is said to be more than Rs 1 lakh crore.
The upper market capitalisation (mcap) threshold for midcap and smallcap stocks in the mutual fund (MF) industry's revised list of stocks, to be announced this month, is set to see the second-highest yearly rise in the past five years. The list was first announced in 2018, and it has been revised every six months since then. According to estimates released by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, the upper threshold for the midcap and smallcap universes could come in at Rs 66,700 crore and Rs 21,900 crore in the next list.