Balaji asks, “Dear Pattu Sir, You have given proof over and over again that one should not expect any particular return from investing in mutual funds and that there are no guarantees, I have just started my mutual fund investment journey. May I know how much risk or loss I should expect? This will help…

Suresh Padmanaban writes, “Dear Pattu, I have been investing in the markets since the mid-90s. I get a feeling that the volatility over these years has gradually come down. Can you please quantitatively verify this?” On 3rdf Feb 2021, the Sensex closed above 50,000 for the first time. We studied the evolution of stock market…

Nearly three years have passed since mutual funds complied with the SEBI recategorization rules. We now have enough data to classify hybrid mutual funds in terms of their risk with respect to equity mutual funds. We shall use the standard deviation of monthly returns over the last three years to classify hybrid mutual funds. Let…

We received this interesting question from a reader who wishes to be anonymous: “There are too many categories of mutual funds. Is there a way by which we can arrange them in terms of their returns?” In this article, we discuss a simple way to do this. We say that equity, debt, gold, real estate…

Here are eight aggressive hybrid mutual funds that have consistently beaten CRISIL Hybrid 35+65 – Aggressive Index. We also discuss their downside protection consistency and performance against NIfty 100 TRI. The index comprises of S&P BSE 200 TR(65%) and CRISIL Composite Bond Fund Index (35%). The analysis was carried out for 33 aggressive hybrid funds,…

In this article, we discuss if investors should bother reading mutual fund scheme information documents. To do this, we first discuss the purpose of a mutual fund scheme information document (SID), how to read it and how to use it. The scheme information document is defined by SEBI’s master circular for mutual funds as a document…

Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ ETF is an open-ended ETF tracking the NYSE FANG+ Total Return Index. The Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ ETF Fund of Fund is an Open-ended fund of fund scheme predominantly investing in Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ ETF. The NFO period of both funds begins today (April 19th 2021). In this review, we…

Over the past few days, several readers have asked, “Is this the right time to start buying gilt mutual funds?”. This is because of our repeated stress on gilt funds being a suitable choice or accompaniment to EPF/PPF for long-term goals. See: PPF vs Gilt mutual funds: Which has done better over 15 years? And Why I…

In this article, we discuss a question posed by Suresh: “sir, the market has slowly started falling after budget 2021. Is it time to book some profits from mutual funds?” Even a casual observer would agree with Suresh. Let us first try to visualise this. The Sensex price movement in pink and the corresponding one-year…

Let us discuss the answer to a question we received recently: “dear sir, can you please compare MF SIP vs lump sum returns and tell us which is a better way to invest in mutual funds?”. This question has been asked and analyzed for decades! Unfortunately, very few point this simple fact. If you ask…

Anyone investing in mutual funds would have heard the saying, “time in the market is better than timing the market”. This was propagated by AMC folk to try and stop fluctuating AUM and, therefore, income/commissions. However, “time in the market” or “staying invested” at all times or “buy and hold” is not different from “timing…

This is a list of the worst-performing equity mutual funds over every possible five, four, three and two year period between 1st Jan 2013 (introduction date of direct plans) to March 8th 2021. Some caveats before we begin:  (1) The definition of a “worst mutual fund” is as arbitrary as the definition of a “best…