'Sebi's move to cap brokerage charges will help investors by lowering the overall cost of investments.'
Mutual fund industry extended its bull run in 2025, adding a staggering Rs 14 lakh crore to its asset base and pushing total AUM to a record Rs 81 lakh crore by November, powered by surge in retail participation and record SIP inflows. Venkat Chalasani, chief executive officer of AMFI, told PTI that the industry's outlook remains positive, with steady SIP inflows continuing to offset foreign portfolio investor outflows and strengthening market resilience.
In November, six primary market issuances accounted for more than 13,000 crore of net equity investments by MFs.
Cash holdings of equity mutual fund (MF) schemes moderated in September amid a slowdown in fresh inflows. Equity MF schemes held cash worth Rs 1.76 trillion at the end of September 2025 - about Rs 400 crore lower than the previous month, according to a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
The net inflow into equity mutual funds surged 24 per cent to Rs 23,587 crore in June, reversing the declining trend of the last five months, driven by strong equity market performance across segments, data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed on Wednesday. Also, the latest fund infusion by investors marks the 52nd consecutive month of net inflows into the segment.
'Long-term investors seeking sustainable gains from resilient, fundamentally strong companies may go for these funds.'
Largecap, flexicap, and balanced advantage funds together recorded a net inflow of Rs 9,363 crore in August, representing a 70% increase from the previous month's total.
Their assets under management (AUM) rose from Rs 1.04 trillion (January 31, 2025) to Rs 1.75 trillion (January 31, 2026), an increase of 68.3 per cent.
Equity mutual funds attracted Rs 39,688 crore in January, driven by sharp inflow in small and midcap schemes, even as market volatilities continued. However, this was 3.5 per cent lower than the net inflow of Rs 41,156 crore registered in December.
The performance of banking and information technology (IT) stocks has had a significant impact on the composition of diversified mutual fund (MF) portfolios. Over the past two months, these sectors have become increasingly dominant, now constituting nearly 30 per cent of the total allocation in many diversified MF portfolios.
'If their allocation to certain segments have become high due to strong returns over the past three-four years, they should rebalance their portfolios and bring them in line with their long-term asset allocation.'
Among index funds, the most popular products are funds tracking the Nifty 50 and Sensex, says Dwaipayan Bose, and explains the finer points of selecting the right index mutual fund.
Sectoral funds, focused exclusively on public sector banks (PSBs), have delivered the strongest returns among domestic mutual fund (MF) categories over the past six months. However, active banking funds have significantly lagged because of their heavy tilt towards private lenders.
After a stellar 2023, the mutual fund industry sustained its growth momentum in 2024 with an impressive Rs 17 lakh crore surge in assets, driven by buoyant equity markets, robust economic growth, and increasing investor participation. Experts are predicting the positive trend will extend into 2025.
Most first-time investors may be better served by diversified options such as flexicap or multi-cap funds, which already hold pharma and healthcare stocks.
'Multi-asset funds have cornered 30 per cent of hybrid fund inflows in 2025, reflecting a growing preference for diversified portfolios that combine equity, debt and commodities.'
Overlap refers to the same stocks appearing across fund portfolios.
Ask rediffGURU Reetika Sharma your insurance, mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
Households should moderate large discretionary expenses for the time being.
'They should prioritise essential spending. They should maintain an emergency fund covering 6 to 12 months of expenses.'
Mutual funds are looking to tap into the special opportunities theme ahead of the results of the general election results and the continued uncertainty on the geo-political and interest rate fronts. Two fund houses - WhiteOak Capital and Samco - are set to launch special opportunities funds next week. Kotak MF has also filed papers with the regulator to launch a scheme in the same category.
Asset management companies launched 239 new fund offerings (NFOs) mobilising Rs 1.18 lakh crore in 2024, with sectoral or thematic equity funds emerging as the top choice of investors, according to a report by Germinate Investor Services Research. This was higher than 212 NFOs collecting Rs 63,854 crore in 2023 and 228 NFOs garnering Rs 62,187 crore in 2022.
The highlight in January, with no surprise, has been flows into gold and silver ETFs.
'The next phase of India's IPO cycle will be defined by quality, pricing discipline and investor selectivity.'
Our mutual fund expert Value Research says no and explains why this should not worry an investor.
Flexicap fund performance depends heavily on the fund manager's decisions.
Retail investors are moving away from a buy-and-hold approach and towards more informed short-term positioning, recent investment patterns show.
Retail investors' equity portfolios have significantly underperformed benchmark indices over the past 16 to 18 months.
Fund managers advise conservative investors to cap midcap exposure at 10 to 15 per cent of their equity portfolio.
The new 'riskometer' seeks to help investors gauge the level of risk in a particular scheme. The new guidelines will come into effect from July 1, 2015.
Passive funds have resumed gaining ground in the mutual fund (MF) industry after a slowdown in 2024, with their share of assets under management (AUM) reaching an all-time high in 2025. The surge has been driven largely by robust inflows into gold and silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The mutual fund industry added Rs 2.2 lakh crore to its asset base in 2022, driven by consistent monthly increase in SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) flows. The Assets Under Management (AUM) of the mutual fund industry rose by 5.7 per cent or Rs 2.2 lakh crore to a total Rs 39.88 lakh crore in 2022, data from the Association of Mutual Fund Industry (Amfi) showed on Tuesday. This was way lower than a surge of nearly 22 per cent or an increase of close to Rs 7 lakh crore in the asset base to Rs 37.72 lakh crore in 2021.
Vice President C P Radhakrishnan addressed Nagaland University graduates, urging them to become responsible leaders and contribute to nation-building, emphasising the importance of peace, unity, and character for development.
K Ramalingam explains the three most powerful signals that indicate your mutual fund's performance
'First-time or conservative investors should avoid narrow sectoral funds.'
The Securities and Exchange Board of India does not seem to have understood the enormity of what funds have been up to. If Sebi does not crack down on mutual funds using cooked-up credit ratings to hide behind promoter funding, this is bound to grow into a systemic menace, says Debashis Basu.But MFs decided to become lenders without the legal backing to secure themselves, or the skillset to assess lending risk. If Sebi does not crack down on mutual funds using cooked-up credit ratings to hide behind promoter funding, this is bound to grow into a systemic menace, says Debashis Basu.
'Except for extremely conservative investors, others can consider allocating 10 to 20 per cent of their portfolio to small caps.'
For decades, multinational pharmaceutical companies and Indian drugmakers worked in ways that supported each other: MNCs brought innovation and brands, while Indian companies built scale through generics and cost efficiency. There was an important overlap - generic drugs - but this is shrinking fast. And the consequences are reshaping India's gigantic pharmaceutical market.
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