MUTUAL FUNDS AND IT'S TYPES

INTRODUCTION

Hello Friends, today's blog is going to be educational and related to your personal finance. In this blog, I will educate you regarding mutual funds. What are mutual funds? How to invest in it? All the necessary information regarding it, being a common man or a beginner investor, all the information you will get in this blog. Let's start.

VARIOUS TYPES OF INVESTMENTS.

Various types of Investments.

Friends, every month when your salary is credited then you keep some part of that salary as savings. You keep some money for your later use, maybe for emergency or if you want to buy the house, or car and you save for that, so what are the ways to save. One simple way is that you keep your salary as it is in the bank and it gets collected. It's a very bad way friends, because such money loses their value, Inflation is increasing in our country and due to that the price of the commodities are increasing too. So, the value of your money keeps decreasing every year by 4-5% according to the inflation rate. People invest the money so that they don't lose their value kept just lying. There are different places to invest. Our country has mainly 4 places for investment. No. 1 is a savings account, No. 2 is FD or Fixed Deposit, No. 3 is Gold or jewellery People buy gold or jewellery with their money and No 4. is Real estate. People buy properties, or land or house. Some people who want to take more risk also invests in the stock market which is another way to invest your money. Every Investment has 3 things, Return, risk and time. Return means how much per cent of profit are you going to earn through that investment, this is normally seen in percentage. If our inflation rate is 4% then you should see that your profit return is more than at least 4 % otherwise there is no point of investment if you have put your money and the value didn't increase, because the inflation rate is also increasing Risk means how risky it is to invest, what is the chance of losing all your money in that investment. What is the chance of going in loss after investing there and time means for how long are you investing. So the basic risk here is that if the time is more, the risk is more then the returns will also be more.

DIVERSIFY YOUR INVESTMENTS.

Diversify your Investments.

If you want more return percentage on your investment then you will have to take more risk and should invest for a longer period saving accounts has the minimum risk and there is no restriction too. You can save or take the money out at any time. But the return we get here is also very less, only 4% whereas our inflation rate in the last few years have been 4-5%. Fixed deposit is also a less risky option but it has a time limit before that we can't take the money out, hence the return is also a bit more, somewhat 7-8%, Gold and jewellery these days have a significant risk, their prices fluctuate a lot if you are going to see this history then you will know that until 2012 the prices were consistently increasing if you would have invested before 2012 then you would have got a good return here. But after 2012 there have been a lot of ups and down but they have maintained a level, hence there's not a much profit. to earn in gold. Investment in the properties and real estate investments has low to moderate risk I would say, you can see India's housing prices in the last few years. It has come up and down a lot. In the quarter or March 2011, it has touched the return rates of 30%and in March 2018 latest quarter then it gives just 5% return rates. One of the disadvantages in investing in housing is that it needs a lot of capital, you need to have lakhs and crores of rupees to invest. So this is a disadvantage.

You might have heard about stock market friends, you can get a lot of returns here but also can lose a lot of money. The risk of investing in the stock market depends on the stock where you are investing. You need to have a good knowledge of the performances of the stock and how does the stock market works basically, you shouldn't be investing here if you don't have this knowledge. So these are a few main types of investments that I have told you but there are some other types too. Like Government bonds, corporate bonds, we have cryptocurrency to these days, people also invest in bitcoins A general well-known advice is that friends you should never invest your money only at one place. You should invest at different places so that if there's any crash then you will not have to bear a huge loss. It's a very less chance of everything crashing altogether like, gold, properties and even stock market as this happens very rarely, chances are that if one thing crashes then you can get profit from the other. This is called diversification, you have to invest at different places. 

WHAT ARE MUTUAL FUNDS AND HOW IT WORKS?

How Mutual Funds Work.

Mutual funds are a special kind of investment through which you can invest in different types together, you can do a diversified investment by investing in one place. Asset Management Companies starts mutual funds. You give your money to Asset Management Company and many people like you do so and that company invests all the money collectively at different places. They have appointed experts and with their suggestion, they invest the money. They invest money at different places and the return rate they get collectively from these different places out of that some small per cent of 1-2% is kept as a profit by the company and the rest you get back as per that return rate. HDFC, HSBC, ICICI, Aditya Birla, Reliance, TATA, these are the few examples of companies and banks who have started their own asset management company. All the companies start different kinds of mutual funds in large numbers. For example, ICICI has started more than 1200 mutual funds.

So how risky is your mutual funds and what is the return depends on the mutual funds that you are investing in. Mutual funds can give the return rate of 4% and also of more than 30% too. It can be of zero risk and also of high risk too. Because all this depends on where the asset management company is investing your money. If that company is investing in stocks then it will be riskier and you will get more returns and if it's investing in the government bonds then it will be less risky. Different types of Mutual funds depends based on the investment done by AMC. 

TYPES OF MUTUAL FUNDS.

Various types of Mutual Funds.

We can divide this into 3 categories: Equity mutual funds, Debt Mutual Funds and Hybrid Mutual funds In Equity Mutual Funds, your money will be invested in the stock market. So naturally in this type of Mutual funds generally the risk is more and also the return. In the stock market on which kind of company are you investing, if it's a big company then it's called as Large Cap Equity Funds If it's a small company then it's called as Small-cap and in the same way Mid Cap equity Funds. Big company doesn't have much risk as compared to the smaller ones but big companies won't have growth rate as high as it can be for the smaller companies. So risk and return both are less in the big companies. ICICI prudential blue-chip fund is an example of a large-cap equity fund. If you invest here for a year then after a year your expected return is of 11.3% but if you invest for 5 years then your expected return can be of 19.7% As I've told in the beginning of the blog, the more time you invest in, the more return you can expect. Here we have a very useful smartphone app. It's called as GROWW this gives information about mutual funds, here you have to set every month what amount do you want to invest, for how long and you will get the expected returns. This app works by checking the history of the mutual funds. That before today in the last 5-10 years what has been the performance of the mutual funds, what's the growth and it gives you the number based on its average growth. I gave the example of the ICICI that you will get 19.7% return in 5 years, this is an expected return rate calculated by this app based on the history of this mutual fund So it's a very good thing to calculate the expected returns of the mutual funds. But one thing keep in mind friends that this is an expected return, not the guaranteed return, it still depends on the market since the mutual fund has given such a performance in the history that doesn't mean that will perform the same way in the future. It still depends on the stock market so it will have risk, especially because it's an equity mutual funds and investment is on the stock market. So don't just look at the returns rate and invest, if you scroll down then you will see the pros and cons too.

HOW TO SELECT BEST MUTUAL FUNDS BASED ON PROS AND CONS.

How to select Mutual Funds based on it's Pros and Cons.

Pros is that the risk is lower as compared to the benchmark, that means among all the other Large-cap Equity funds, the benchmark of the risk of this particular fund is less So this is a good point here that compared to the other ones as this has less risk. Another point is the lower expense ratio, is that percentage which is the part taken by the asset management company as their profit the commission for investing on your behalf, so this is lower as compared to the others which is again a good comparison. I look at the more pros then you will see that it's returns are more than the benchmarks in 1 yr, 3 years, 5 years. In some mutual funds, they give one year 1 return more than the benchmark and less in 3 or 5 years. that means it's better for short terms. Look at the pros and cons and decide what is better for the short term and other things can also be compared.

In cons, it says that asset under management, that means they have a total value of the money this company has invested at different places has crossed 15000 crores, so it happens that if the value crosses a particular point then the returns rate gets decreasing slowly because the value of the money is so much that taking returns is difficult and this you can see for yourself.

So let's get back to the different types of equity funds. Next type is Diversified equity funds here the investment is done in the large, medium and small-cap or it's done in different companies. Next type is Equity Linked Saving scheme that is ELSS, this is a special type of Equity fund where you can save your tax. You can save the tax on its profit. The fund manager purposely invest in such places where there's high return and also has high risk. IDFC Tax advantage is an example of ELSS funds with the expected returns of 11.3% within a year.

Next type is Sector Mutual Funds, here specifically such companies are invested on which belongs to a big sectors like Agriculture sector, and invests money in all the companies which are under the agriculture sector. One example for this is UTI transportation and logistics funds. so the investment is done in that sector these funds are riskier, since all the investment is done in one sector so if the sector is going down everything depends on that. The last type of equity fund that I would want to tell you is an Index fund.

Index Funds are passively Managed funds that is no agent of AMC is looking at where to invest the money here These are passively managed that is according to the market's rate's up and downs they too go up and down. looking at the price of Sensex and Nifty it varies.

WHAT ARE DEBT MUTUAL FUNDS?

 Now let's look at the second category of the mutual fund's friends, that is Debt Mutual Funds these are those mutual funds which are invested in the debt instruments. Debts instruments are bonds, debenture, certificates of deposits, I will tell you what are bonds, sometimes if the Government needs money and it's not getting that through the budget then the government borrows money from the people and take loans from the people it is called as bonds you can invest here, give money to the government and the government will return you the money after a fixed interest. Now debt mutual funds are of various kinds, let's first talk about liquid funds, these funds are those mutual funds which can be easily and quickly converted into cash ,it's not the liquid to drink. In economics, the liquid is something which can be easily converted into cash. So this thing can be converted into cash within a day or two. But it has a very low risk, such low that you can consider this as an alternative to the savings account. Asset liquid fund is one such example where you will get the return of 7.1% in a year.

Next type is Gilt Funds, these are those funds where Investments are done on the Government issued bonds. So technically it has zero risk because it's never possible for the Government to not return your money. Mostly the interest rate can fluctuate.

Next type is Fixed Maturity plans and this can be considered as an alternative to Fixed deposits, because it has very low risk just like FD and it is done for a fixed time. For a specific time investment is done here and you can't take the money before that. So these are the few main types of Debt funds there are more like Junk Bond scheme.

Hybrid Mutual Funds.

The third category of mutual funds is Hybrid Mutual Funds friends, basically its a mixture of debt and equity mutual funds. Some people want to invest in the stock market but don't want to invest all the money there and also invest some amount in the Debt instruments., so hybrid mutual funds are for them. If most of the money is invested in a Debt fund then it will be called as the Balanced savings Funds Approximately the ratio is 70:30 that means 70%of your money is at the low-risk debt funds and 30% is in the equity funds and if it's the other way, 70% is in the equity funds at a higher risk, then it is called as a balanced advantage fund.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN MUTUAL FUNDS.

 The biggest advantage of mutual funds in comparison to other investment is that it is already diversified. Your risk gets very low due to diversification because you are not investing in one place so if one thing crashes so it won't affect your money. So in comparison to the stock market, gold, real estate, mutual funds are less risky however the exact risk depends on the mutual fund that you are investing in. One more good advantage is that it is affordable, you don't have to invest a big amount altogether you can use SIP and invest a small amount every month and all the investment of the mutual funds is done by a professional expert or a fund manager who decided where to invest and where to not. This you don't need to so it's again a big advantage that an expert is working for you. But friends this mutual funds has a disadvantage too. If you are giving it to an unknown person, you don't know how it's going to perform however he is an expert but you can't trust 100% that an expert will be right all the time. But the biggest disadvantage that used to be for the mutual funds earlier is that the agents used to take a lot of commissions for investing in the mutual funds. They say that gives us the money we will invest for you in the mutual funds and deduct a lot of commissions for themselves now that disadvantage is not possible due to the smartphone apps who like GROWW, KUVERA etc apps where there is no hidden charges and also doesn't deduct it's hidden charges.

 So I hope friends that you must have got a lot to learn so share this Blog with your friends and family and spread the knowledge with them too. and teach them about the mutual funds investment too. Let's meet in the next blog. 

                                                             Thank you.