Disadvantages of Investing in ULIP

Posted on February, 15 at 11:49 am

Yes, you should never invest in ULIPs as it is neither an insurance plan nor a mutual fund scheme. It is a mix of both which is sold to people via agents. It is very easy to make money in Unit Linked Insurance Plan if you are the agent otherwise you are bound to lose money in it. Let us have a look at some of the things you should consider before buying an ULIPs:

  • One should keep insurance and investments away from each other. Take a term insurance and invest in mutual funds.
  • You lose a lot of amount as entry load in ULIPs which take a minimum of 5 years to recover.
  • Mutual Funds are completely transparent whereas ULIPs are not.
  • If you want to really benefit something out of ULIPs then you have to invest in it for 10-15 years.
  • The insurance part of the ULIP costs too much.
  • Premium allocation charge, mortality charge, fund management charge and many more hidden costs are very high.

Posted in Insurance, Mutual Fund Investments | No Comments »

Sundaram BNP Paribas MIP NFO

Posted on February, 3 at 6:11 pm

Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund recently announced the launch of Monthly Income Plan (MIP) – Sundaram BNP Paribas Monthly Income Plan an open-ended fund. Plans that are proposed to be offered are aggressive and conservative plan.

This scheme is going to invest in fixed income securities and would generate regular income out of it. This fund is also going to invest a portion in equity and equity related instruments in order to generate long term capital appreciation.

Aggressive plan
Government securities, debt securities and money market instruments – Upto 100%
Equity and equity related securities – Upto 30%
Securitized debt – 70%

Conservative plan
Government securities and debt securities – Upto 100%
Equity and equity-related securities – 10%
Securitized debt – 75%

This fund is offered in both growth and dividend payout options. Dividend reinvestment option is also present in this fund but only in monthly, quarterly and half yearly basis.

The fund managers for this fund will be K Ramkumar (for Debt Portfolio) & Satish Ramanathan (for Equity Portfolio).

This fund is going to be bench marked against CRISIL MIP Blended Index.

Load Structure :
Entry Load: Nil
Exit Load: For redemption within 12 months from the date of allotment – 1%
For redemption on or after 12 months from the date of allotment – Nil

No load will be charged (entry & exit) on bonus units and of units allotted on re-investment of dividend.

The new fund has opened on January 25, 2010 and closes on February 23, 2010.

Posted in New Fund Offers | No Comments »

IDFC Mutual Fund introduces Daily Systematic Investment Plan

Posted on February, 3 at 5:54 pm

IDFC Mutual Fund has introduced daily (SIP) Systematic Investment Plan for all its schemes. This facility will be available for the schemes in which SIP facility was earlier available. This plan will come into effect from 1st of February 2010.

The daily SIP could only be processed only on business days.

The installments will be fixed and equal to 6 minimum installments.

Nav, Load structure, minimum SIP amount and other basic features will remain same.

The primary advantage for this investment plan would be:

  • One could invest pre specified amount at pre specified intervals thus your investment is well distributed.
  • Investments in ups and downs of the market.
  • Benefits of equity market volatility
  • It makes you disciplined investor.

Posted in Industry News | No Comments »

Top 10 Tax Saving Mutual Funds

Posted on February, 2 at 4:45 pm

Below is the list of top 10 tax saving mutual funds since last 1 year as on Feb 02, 2010:

SL. No. Scheme Name Launch Return 1 Year
1 ICICI Prudential Tax Plan Aug 09, 1999 123.43
2 HDFC Taxsaver 31-Mar-96 109.99
3 Canara Robeco Equity Tax Saver 31-Mar-93 106.43
4 Birla Sun Life Tax Relief 96 29-Mar-96 106.17
5 ING Tax Savings 12-Mar-04 105.02
6 DBS Chola Tax Saver 26-Oct-05 104.46
7 Taurus Tax Shield 31-Mar-96 95.26
8 HDFC LT Advantage 27-Dec-00 94.83
9 DSPBR Tax Saver 26-Dec-06 92.12
10 Sahara Tax Gain 31-Mar-97 91.91

From the list above you could very well see that these tax saving mutual funds are no less then equity diversified funds.

Posted in Mutual Fund Rankings | No Comments »

Top 10 Equity Diversified Mutual Fund for January 2010

Posted on January, 31 at 10:16 am

Below is top 10 equity diversified mutual fund of January 2010:

SL. No. Funds Nav (Date) 1Month Return
1 IDFC Premier Equity Plan B 19.46 (29 Jan) 1.34
2 IDFC Premier Equity Plan A 26.39 (29 Jan) 1.34
3 ICICI Prudential Discovery Inst I 17.85 (29 Jan) 1.31
4 ICICI Prudential Discovery 40.46 (29 Jan) 1.18
5 Magnum Emerging Businesses 32.53 (29 Jan) 1.02
6 ICICI Prudential Emerging STAR Inst I 12.00 (29 Jan) 0.5
7 ICICI Prudential Emerging STAR 29.69 (29 Jan) 0.34
8 Magnum Midcap 21.76 (29 Jan) -0.23
9 DSPBR Small and Mid Cap Reg 14.54 (29 Jan) -0.23
10 Tata Dividend Yield 26.38 (29 Jan) -0.25

Posted in Mutual Fund Rankings | No Comments »

Mutual Fund Companies in India

Posted on January, 29 at 5:21 am

At the time of writing this article there are 48 mutual fund companies in India. Mutual fund companies are dominated and primarily owned by Banks and Insurance companies. Below is the list of mutual fund companies in India:

  1. ABN AMRO Mutual Fund
  2. AIG Global Investment Group Mutual Fund
  3. Alliance Capital Mutual Fund
  4. Axis Mutual Fund
  5. Baroda Pioneer Mutual Fund
  6. Benchmark Mutual Fund
  7. Bharti AXA Mutual Fund
  8. Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund
  9. Canara Robeco Mutual Fund
  10. DBS Chola Mutual Fund
  11. Deutsche Mutual Fund
  12. DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund
  13. Edelweiss Mutual Fund
  14. Escorts Mutual Fund
  15. Fidelity Mutual Fund
  16. Fortis Mutual Fund
  17. Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund
  18. GIC Mutual Fund
  19. Goldman Sachs Mutual Fund
  20. HDFC Mutual Fund
  21. HSBC Mutual Fund
  22. ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund
  23. IDFC Mutual Fund
  24. IL & F S Mutual Fund
  25. ING Mutual Fund
  26. JM Financial Mutual Fund
  27. JPMorgan Mutual Fund
  28. Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund
  29. LIC Mutual Fund
  30. Mirae Asset Mutual Fund
  31. Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund
  32. Peerless Mutual Fund
  33. PNB Mutual Fund
  34. PRINCIPAL Mutual Fund
  35. Quantum Mutual Fund
  36. Reliance Mutual Fund
  37. Religare AEGON Mutual Fund
  38. Religare Mutual Fund
  39. Sahara Mutual Fund
  40. SBI Mutual Fund
  41. Shinsei Mutual Fund
  42. Standard Chartered Mutual Fund
  43. SUN F & C Mutual Fund
  44. Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund
  45. Tata Mutual Fund
  46. Taurus Mutual Fund
  47. UTI Mutual Fund
  48. Zurich India Mutual Fund

Posted in Mutual Fund Companies | No Comments »

Mirae Asset Short Term Bond Fund Launched by Mirae Asset mutual fund

Posted on June, 28 at 5:26 pm

Mirae Asset Short Term Bond Fund would focuses on generating returns by taking interest rate views on investments both at the medium and short end of the yield curve. The fund is ideally suited for investors with an investment horizon of at least 3 to 6 months.

NFO for Scheme Opens on: 23rd June, 2009
NFO for Scheme Closes on: 22nd July, 2009
Scheme re-opens: 12th August, 2009

Fund Details:

Type of the scheme:
An open ended debt scheme

Investment Objective:
The investment objective of the scheme is to seek to generate returns through an actively managed diversified portfolio of debt and money market instruments. There is no assurance OR guarantee of returns.

Plans & Options:
The Scheme shall have two Plans – Regular and Institutional, Each Plan offers investors two investment options: Growth Option and Dividend Option.

Dividend Option shall have the choice of dividend payout, dividend reinvestment and dividend transfer options. All Plans will have a common portfolio. However, the returns under each Plan are expected to vary having regard to the specified expense ratio under the relevant Plan. Systematic Investment Plan (“SIP”) / Systematic Withdrawal Plan (“SWP”) / Systematic Transfer Plan (“STP”) will be available only in the Regular Plan.

Minimum Subscription Amount:
The Fund seeks to raise a minimum subscription amount of Rs. 10 lakhs under the scheme during its new fund offer period.

Earnings of the Fund:
Earnings of the fund are totally exempt from income tax under Section 10(23D) of the I.T Act.

Posted in New Fund Offers | No Comments »

Sahara Mutual Fund lanches Sahara super 20 fund

Posted on June, 27 at 6:35 pm

New fund offer period opens on : 25th June, 2009
New fund offer period closes on : 23rd July, 2009

Sahara mutual fund has launched Sahara super 20 fund on June 25th, 2009. This mutual fund is going to be a open-end equity fund.

The scheme is going to invest in 20 companies out of top 100 largest market capitalization companies at the time of investment. This scheme is going to provide provide long term capital appreciation in equity and equity related securities.

This scheme is going to invest 65% of its assets in Equity and Equity related Instruments and 35% in Debt and Money Market Instruments including securitized debt.

Name of the Fund Manager: A N Sridhar
Plans and Options: The Fund offers investment under 1) Dividend Option Reinvestment & Payout 2) Growth option.
SIP: Monthly – 1st cheque of Rs.1000/- along with minimum of 5 post dated cheques of minimum of Rs.1000/ Quarterly – 1st cheque of Rs.2000/-along with minimum of 3 post dated cheques of minimum of Rs.2000/- each.
Minimum Application Amount: Rs.5000/- and in multiples of Re.1/- thereafter.
Benchmark: S&P CNX Nifty
Load Structure: Entry Load: 2.50%
Exit Load: For investments of Rs 1 crore or more, 1% if units are redeemed within 1 year. No exit load is applicable for investments less than Rs 1 crore.

Posted in New Fund Offers | No Comments »

Why Invest in Mutual Funds?

Posted on September, 28 at 12:00 pm

The popular investment option for Indian Investors are Mutual fund, fixed deposit, Insurance, ULIP and Share Market. The big question, Why Invest in Mutual Funds or why Mutual funds are considered as best option for small and medium investors? Let us have a look at some of the benefits for Investing in mutual funds:

  • Transparency : Investor can have a complete control over his portfolio and can keep a close eye on the returns on a daily basis.
  • Safety: Investor’s money is managed by professional.
  • Liquidity: One can buy or sell mutual funds on a daily basis.
  • Tax: Lot of mutual funds gives tax benefits.
  • Affordable: The minimum investment amount starts from Rs. 100 to Rs. 1000 which is quite affordable for even small investors.
  • Regulated: The MF sector is regulated to protect interest of investors.

Posted in Mutual Fund Investments | 1 Comment »

HCL vs. Infosys – Will the war intensify

Posted on September, 28 at 10:45 am

What will be the next move of Infosys technologies after HCL offered 650 pence a share for Axon Group? Infosys offered 600 pence a share for Axon a month ago.

Axon is a European SAP implementation firm for which the bid war is going on between HCL and Infosys. Due to the recent bid by HCL, share price for Axon went up by 7.6% at 682 pence on London stock Exchange. Axon’s share prices have jumped by 12% since last Infosys make a bid for the company.

At this point Infosys can make a counter offer as they might have prepared themselves for that while bidding at the first place. As far as I think, Infosys is a very cautious company and might not be interested any more. If however they want to, they have to raise their bid by 10-12% of their initial bid. This seems unlikely due to the changing market conditions and US slowdown.

Posted in Industry News | No Comments »