Source: money Control
What indicators does one actually go by while deciding on which mutual fund to actually go for? How much market research, what guiding principles do you refer to?
A: The definition of a good fund is very straightforward- a fund which participates in a market, and does a little better than the market when the market rises and falls a little less, when the market falls.
After a few year this adds upto making it a good fund. One shouldn't consider a fund which is going ballistic. Rather, choose a fund which is able to participate in the market rise reasonably well and falls less in a falling market.
So all this translates into solid long term performance. One is unlikely to go wrong with any fund among the top 15 in the 5-year time period or 10 year time period.
Q: Also come in on two aspects relating to mutual funds, one of course the entry and exit load that the unit holders have to pay, the open ended and close ended funds and more importantly the churning of portfolios that mutual funds do and the kind of costs that accrue to the unit holders on account of that?
: The open end-closed end fund debate is on right now. There are more closed end funds, of late, compared to open end funds which have come to prevail in India for sometime. This is something which most investors should be wary of.
A closed end fund is a bad idea. To invest in mutual funds, one has to choose a good fund, and invest regularly. Closed end funds don’t allow either.
Once a closed end fund starts and one has to participate, and if one doesn't, one will miss out. If one wants to invest regularly, it is not possible to do it in a closed end fund. These are two big constraints of closed end funds.
To top that, closed end funds devised by fund companies, are half closed end, because there could be a defendable idea of a closed end fund that the fund managers gets a reasonable time frame to plan his portfolio, say a 5 year or 15 year.
The only real closed end listed fund in India was the the Morgan Stanley Growth fund. It was devised as a 15 year closed end fund and it has proven its worth despite the bad stress or the initial problem it faced.
People havn' t had a very pleasing experience with this fund despite the fact that this fund has proved its case that the fund manager is not exposed to the investors action on a day-to-day basis.
Q: An investor has invested in some of the mutual funds in their systematic investment plan, the mutual funds are Reliance Mutual fund, Reliance Growth Fund, Franklin Templeton mutual fund and also Sundaram Select Midcap fund and also in DSP Merrill Lynch. The investor is looking at more options in the mutual fund space and has spelt out all his investments currently in the mutual funds. What do you make of the funds that the investor has spoken about or is currently invested in and which are the funds you think that he can look at now?
His choices are good. The choices are excellent. In fact, these are some of the best performing funds with robust long-term performance. So good choice for his initial selection and I don’t think he should be really tempted to spread his investment universe.
By investing in about 6 equity-diversified funds, whatever be the quantum, his money is spread across at least 250 stocks, which is more than desirable.
Be a selective investor, choose a good fund. Keep investing more in the existing funds that you have. The only fund about which I am a little apprehensive is Reliance Growth, which is too large a midcap fund. This fund will have to struggle quite a bit in future to perform or sustain its performance.
Q: How does the future look for Franklin Taxshield Fund?
A: It has been a good fund. It has derived all its returns from a very high quality portfolio. But it is not the best performing tax saving fund. In tax saving funds, the fund mangers are allowed or have available flexibility because once investors put their money, the investors cannot take that money back for at least three years.
Every money invested in tax saving funds come with a three-year lock-in period. So fund managers can afford to take some risk, maybe compromise on the liquidity, assume some liquidity risk and enhance returns, which other tax saving funds have done, but not Franklin Taxshield.
It has been a good fund, it has rewarded well. But purely on the return and the flexibility available to the fund managers, it has not been able to capitalize and it has not been able to make the most out of what is available to it.
Exiting from this fund may not be possible if the investor has invested just now because every money invested has to be remain invested for 3 years. But incremental investment investor should consider other choices, for example the HDFC Tax Saver or the Magnum Tax Gain or the Prudential Tax Saving fund. There are superior choices purely from return perspective and the time horizon. In these funds, one has to be invested at least for three years.
Q: Which are the industry-specific funds that you are particularly bullish on, considering they are too sensitive to the market movements? How much of a ratio do you advise in one's portfolio to industry specific funds?
A: The sectoral fund and the industry specific fund could be a good vehicle for targeted diversification. But to invest and make something out of these funds, an investor must back it with his own conviction and his own belief. Going by the standard yardstick that every diversified fund is reasonably emphasizing technology, their mandate does not allow them to be more invested.
So I think it is about time, if investors think that technology is a robust performer, and has proven its credentials, the time has changed and the good story prevails, then technology funds could be another story, which one should really enhance one's allocation to.
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