rediffGURU Ulhas Joshi answers readers' mutual fund queries
Ulhas Joshi, Head -- Sales, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered that Rs 9,122 crore be disbursed within three weeks to the unitholders of Franklin Templeton's six mutual fund schemes which are proposed to be wound up.
Adani group firm Adani Ports & SEZ paid Rs 1,500 crore loan and promised to repay more as the embattled conglomerate mapped a comeback strategy after a sellout triggered by a damning report by US-based Hindenburg Research. Adani Ports and SEZ paid SBI Mutual Funds' due amount of Rs 1,500 crore on Monday and will also pay another Rs 1,000 crore of commercial papers due in March (as per the payment scheme), a company spokesperson said. "This part prepayment is from the existing cash balance and funds generated from the business operations," the spokesperson said.
The country's six largest smallcap schemes would require more than 20 days to liquidate half of their holdings, despite most of them maintaining high cash levels and having considerable exposure to more liquid largecap stocks, stress tests conducted by fund houses reveal. For midcap funds, the time required to sell half of the assets of the top six schemes varies between seven and 34 days, according to disclosures made by asset management companies. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had called for such tests in the face of strong inflows into smallcap and midcap funds, despite concerns over high valuations, to keep investors better informed.
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.
'Investors should allocate about 5% to 10% to such funds.'
Relations with the government, the bank's majority owner, are a tricky issue for all SBI chiefs, and, like all his predecessors, Khara will be closely watched for his equations with the finance ministry representative on the SBI board.
'Investors should do proper analysis before putting in their money in NFOs as most new launches are in the high-risk thematic space.'
Ask rediffGURU Ulhas Joshi your mutual fund queries.
The top three mutual funds (MFs) paid out 10-18 per cent higher commissions to distributors during the financial year 2022-23 (FY23) compared to FY22 as a sustained rise in flows from the systematic investment plan (SIP) route boosted distributors' share in the assets under management (AUM), according to an analysis of the disclosures by the top three fund houses. State Bank of India (SBI) MF saw its commission payout go up 18 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 1,675 crore. The payouts rose 10 per cent and 15 per cent for ICICI Prudential MF and HDFC MF, respectively.
Domestic mutual funds (MFs) and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have been net buyers of stocks in August. Domestic fund houses have continued to invest in stocks, propelled by the success of various new fund offers (NFOs) and strong flows into equity funds. MFs had purchased stocks worth more than Rs 8,300 crore until August 23, according to the data provided on the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) website. Jimmy Patel, MD and CEO at Quantum AMC, says: "The surge in equity investments by MFs is because of two key reasons. One, equity NFOs are getting a strong response from investors, and fund houses need to deploy that money in the markets.
UTI, SBI, Reliance MF promote SIPs with low threshold. However, there are several hurdles. Mutual fund investments require the investor to have a PAN -- a big deterrent when it comes to tapping small and marginal investors. A big fear is that given the fickle nature of the stock market, rural investors might easily get scared when there is a downturn in the market.
Had you invested Rs 5,000 every month in SBI Magnum Multicap Fund through systematic investment plan (SIP) for the last 5 years, the value of your investment would be over Rs 5.2 lakh as on August 22, 2016
Equity flows turning positive could give fund managers firepower to invest in the markets. This could come in handy as flows from foreign investors have tapered off amid rising bond yields in the US.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
rediffGURU Ulhas Joshi recommends five factors you need to look at to evaluate the performance of two schemes.
rediffGURU Nikunj Saraf suggests considering small-cap, mid-cap, and multi-cap mutual funds.
Post the change in debt fund taxation in March, a lesser-known hybrid fund has emerged as one of the alternatives for fixed-income investors. Equity savings schemes, the smallest hybrid fund category in terms of assets, have raked in around Rs 6,000 crore this financial year (FY24) so far compared to Rs 1,100-crore outflow in FY23. The inflows along with a strong performance led to a 50 per cent surge in assets under management (AUM) to Rs 24,100 crore during April-November, shows data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).
J M Mutual Fund's chief investment officer (equity) speaks about his stock picking strategies. He says he is a firm believer in focusing on companies than on sectors.
Fund houses bet on growth, divestment and deregulation.
The British pharma and consumer products maker had announced the open offer in November last year to raise its stake in its subsidiary to 75 per cent from 43.16 per cent at present.
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
Small and midcap schemes may impose restrictions on redemptions, cap employee withdrawals, and increase the exit load, while ensuring a proportionate liquidation of the portfolio during market crises to safeguard the interests of all investors. These measures have been outlined in the investor protection policies recently put out by mutual fund (MF) trustees. The policies for small and midcap schemes were prepared by MF trustees following directives from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) earlier this month.
Shrinking inflows and surging outflows on account of profit-booking has curtailed mutual fund (MF) investments in equities since April. The total investments made by equity MFs during the first three months of 2023-24 stands at just Rs 2,980 crore, compared with an average monthly investment of Rs 14,500 crore in 2022-23, reveals data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India. "We are seeing signs of moderation in non-systematic investment plan (SIP) contribution, which has impacted domestic fund inflows in recent months to some extent," says Kunal Vora, head-India equity research, BNP Paribas.
Days after JP Morgan announced the inclusion of government bonds in its emerging market (EM) bond index, a host of banks and other financial institutions (FIs) are set to tap the debt market. They plan to raise Rs 18,000 crore by issuing non-convertible debentures (NCDs) and bonds. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) plans to raise up to Rs 3,000 crore via five-year social impact bonds on Tuesday, the first of its kind in India.
The time is ripe for a merger of eight fund houses indirectly owned and controlled by the central government, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
A study of the top ten mutual funds' equity portfolios as on March 30 reveals that funds bought huge chunks of metal major SAIL, engineering stock KEC Infrastructures, while diluted their exposure to FMCG major ITC.
rediffGURU Samkit Maniar answers readers' personal income tax queries
Some of the public banks showed improvement; much more still needs to be done
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has asked fund houses operating smallcap funds with a large corpus to share data on their holdings in the total free float of smallcap stocks, according to sources. This is part of the stress tests that the regulator wants fund houses to undertake amid a surge in inflows into smallcap schemes and growing concerns about valuations. Free float refers to the quantum of freely available shares for trading on the stock market.
At a time when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were unloading Jio Financial Services from their portfolios, some active fund managers were placing large bets on the demerged financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows. Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund were the top MF buyers of the stock in August. They bought around 60 million shares each, together investing around Rs 2,800 crore.
rediffGURU Sunil Lala answers your MF-related queries.