Original analysis, reports, reviews and insights on developments in the mutual fund space and in-depth reviews
In this post, let us discuss mutual fund exit strategies. In particular, the oft asked question, “when should I exit an equity mutual fund”. It is obvious that in order to know when to get rid of a mutual fund, one should know how to review a portfolio of fund holdings. In an earlier post…
Continue reading →Have you ever wondered how the total expense ratio (TER) of a mutual fund is calculated? Or what the constituents of the TER are? The most authentic publically available source for understanding the TER is the annual report released by AMC. Yesterday, Franklin Templeton announced to its investors that the abridged annual report for 2015-2016…
Continue reading →The correlation between the Nifty PE and long-term bond yield (10-year GOI bond) is discussed in this post. I had earlier considered the relevance of the Nifty PE for the long-term investor and misconceptions about the Nifty PE. A few days ago, I had asked, what is a high index PE?. There were two interesting comments by Deep and Kamal…
Continue reading →Use this sheet to automatically track the XIRR of your mutual fund SIP month by month and compare its performance with a benchmark index. In this updated version, the Nifty strategic indices have been included for comparison. The sheet includes a ‘cumulative outperformance’ feature. This gives you the no of times the fund has out-performed its index…
Continue reading →When the markets start to move for a few days, investors tend to look at the index PE to check if the market is overvalued or not. Before we caution ourselves (and others) about ‘high PE’ levels, it would be quite instructive to pause and think about the historical evolution of the index PE . Before we…
Continue reading →It is possible to build a beautifully diversified equity portfolio with only sector mutual funds. The data first published with this idea in April 2014 has now been updated. Note: what is presented below is an investment idea presented with academic curiosity and not a recommendation to abandon your existing diversified mutual funds. Investing for long-term…
Continue reading →A smart beta investment strategy is one in which a stock index is built with specific rules instead of a simple market cap based allocation. The nifty strategy indices are examples of a smart beta investment strategy. In a series of posts, I had covered several of these indices including a rolling a returns tool…
Continue reading →Debt mutual funds are advertised as tax-efficient alternatives to fixed deposits. There is more to investing than tax-efficiency. Investors must be aware of the associated volatility and how it can impact returns depending on the duration. Post-tax debt fund returns may or may not be higher than post-tax fixed deposit returns. The answer to the…
Continue reading →Rolling returns calculators provide a simple, easy to understand visual representation of how consistently a mutual fund has outperformed its benchmark. The freefincal mutual fund lump sum and SIP rolling returns calculators now include six nifty strategy indices (smart beta) for analysing mutual fund performance. As seen in a recent series of posts, Nifty strategic indices…
Continue reading →I have been holding an individual health insurance cover for my family for the last 10 years. In this post, I look at how the insurance premium has increased during this period. I hold a United India Platinum policy for self, wife and son and a Gold policy for my mother. Each year, I have…
Continue reading →The Motilal Oswal Value Index (MOVI) allows the investor to change equity and fixed income levels as per MOVI values. In this post, I try to understand how the MOVI is calculated. This is only an academic post about the MOVI and is neither a recommendation to use MOVI or Motilal Oswal Mutual Funds. MOVI-based indexing…
Continue reading →The NSE maintains 15 strategy indices, each of which are based on a unique quantitative method. Collectively, they are referred to as a smart beta strategies. In this post, I would like to present a short introduction to six of them which I believe could be more stringent alternative benchmarks for mutual funds. They could (and are)…
Continue reading →The Nifty Low Volatility 50 Index (NLV50) is a portfolio of 50 stocks that has the least volatility among all the stocks listed at the NSE. This is referred to as a smart beta strategy. Considering the way it is constructed, its performance (much of which is backdated) has been quite interesting and I think…
Continue reading →Arbitrage mutual funds suddenly came into the spotlight after the recommendations of Budget 2014, which adversely affected investors in debt mutual funds. They would now have to wait 3 years to apply indexation benefits to their capital gains from debt funds. For durations below or equal to three years, gains will be added to income…
Continue reading →The Omega ratio is an interesting performance evaluation metric that can be used for evaluating a mutual fund with its benchmark and also compare funds. In this post, I present a simple, non-technical description of the omega ratio along with some examples. The Omega ratio has been part of the mutual Fund risk vs return analyzer since…
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