A Mutual Fund is a body corporate registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), that pools up the money from individual / corporate investors and invests the same on behalf of the investors /unit holders, in equity shares, Government securities, Bonds, Call money markets etc., and distributes the profits. In other words, a mutual fund allows an investor to indirectly take a position in a basket of assets.

Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the regulatory body for all the mutual funds mentioned above. All the mutual funds must get registered with SEBI.

For a retail investor who does not have the time and expertise to analyze and invest in stocks and bonds, mutual funds offer a viable investment alternative. This is because: Mutual Funds provide the benefit of cheap access to expensive stocks Mutual funds diversify the risk of the investor by investing in a basket of assets A team of professional fund managers manages them with in-depth research inputs from investment analysts. Being institutions with good bargaining power in markets, mutual funds have access to crucial corporate information which individual investors cannot access.

Financial theory states that an investor can reduce his total risk by holding a portfolio of assets instead of only one asset. This is because by holding all your money in just one asset, the entire fortunes of your portfolio depend on this one asset. By creating a portfolio of a variety of assets, this risk is substantially reduced.

No. Mutual fund investments are not totally risk free. In fact, investing in mutual funds contains the same risk as investing in the markets, the only difference being that due to professional management of funds the controllable risks are substantially reduced.

One can invest by approaching a registered broker of Mutual funds or the respective offices of the Mutual funds in that particular town/city. An application form has to be filled up giving all the particulars along with the cheque or Demand Draft for the amount to be invested. Online Investment is getting more popular now a days because its hassle free and quick.

Performance indicators like total returns given by the fund on different schemes, the returns on competing funds, the objective of the fund and the promoters image are some of the key factors to be considered while taking an investment decision regarding mutual funds.

As a service to the investing community, We do it for you. Our research team evaluates each scheme based on primary as well as secondary information and presents an unbiased report which will help you to take a decision on whether a fund is worth investing or not

It depends on your investment object, which again depends on your income, age, financial responsibilities, risk taking capacity and tax status. For example a retired government employee is most likely to opt for monthly income plan while a high-income youngster is most likely to opt for growth plan.

A systematic investment plan is one where an investor contributes a fixed amount every month and at the prevailing NAV the units are credited to his account. Today many funds are offering this facility.

A systematic investment plan (SIP) offers 2 major benefits to an investor: It avoids lump sum investment at one point of time In a scenario of falling prices, it reduces your overall cost of acquisition by a process of rupee-cost averaging. This means that at lower prices you end up getting more units for the same investment.

Once again this decision will depend on factors like your income, savings, risk aversion and tax status.

As per SEBI Regulations, mutual funds are not allowed to assure returns. However, funds floated by AMCs of public sector banks and financial institutions were permitted to assure returns to the unitholders provided the parent sponsor was willing to give an explicit guarantee to honor such a commitment. But in general, mutual funds cannot assure fixed returns to their investors.

While the concept remains the same of collecting money from investors, pooling them and investing the funds, the target investors are different. In the case of portfolio management the target investors are high networth investors while in case of mutual funds the target investors are the retail investors.

Yes in case of certain specific Equity Linked Saving Schemes, tax benefits are available.