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MIPs – Monthly Income Plans

July 11, 2011 3 Comments

MIPs are hybrid debtoriented mutual fund products.They are great places to park money if you have a 2-3 year horizon.The majority of the money in this case is invested in debt and the NAVs fall when the interest rates rise.Currently the equity markets are showing some weakness and the interest rates are high,so MIP NAVs are low.So its a good time to pick up MIPs .HDFC and Reliance are 2 fund houses that are known for their treasury management operations.And HDFC and Birla Sun Life MIPs have perfomed well due to superior management of the equity component.

Here is a video that walks you through the ABCs of MIPs:

Filed under Paper Assets, Theory, Tool Kit Tagged with Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, debt, HDFC Mutual Fund, hybrid debt oriented mutual fund, Interest Rate, MIP, monthly income plan, mutual fund, NAV, post a day, RandomBlog2011, Reliance Mutual Fund, treasury management operations

The Nuances of Liquid and Liquid Plus Funds

July 10, 2011 1 Comment

Mutual fund schemes known as liquid funds /money market funds/cash funds and ultra short-term bond funds/liquid plus funds are options for parking funds for the short term.They allow for a high degree of liquidity.They are alternatives to keeping money in a savings bank account or a short term bank fixed deposit.

Liquid funds invest in money market instruments of residual maturity up to 91 days.Liquid funds have the lowest volatility in returns among all categories of mutual funds because there is there is no mark-to-market (MTM) valuation of the portfolio on a daily basis unless there is a trade in the secondary market in the underlying security .Practically there is no trade in money-market instruments and valuation of daily NAV happens on an accrual basis, i.e., by adding the coupon accrued for the day without any mark-to-market impact. Read more of this post

Filed under Paper Assets, Theory, Tool Kit Tagged with AMC, cash funds, cash management, coupon, debt funds, dividend distribution tax, dividend option, growth option, liquid funds, liquid plus funds, liquidity, low volatility, mark to market, money market funds, money market instruments, Mutual Funds, NAV, portfolio maturity, post a day, postaday2011, RandomBlog2011, savings bank account, secondary market trade, short term bank fixed deposit, ultra short term bond funds

Why Avoid Small Cap Mutual Funds

July 10, 2011 2 Comments

Mutual funds are largely retail investment products.They are more suitable for saving money rather than make it grow at astonishing rates.They are largely targeted at middle class investors.However wealthy investors too continue to invest in mutual funds.The advantages of getting professional investment management and not having to deal with researching stocks , trading and tracking a portfolio is too much to give up. However mutual funds investing exclusively in small cap companies are not very popular with more sophisticated investors.This is because mutual funds are not the best way to invest in small cap companies.

Consider this: There are 62 funds in Value Research’s Mid and Small Cap category. Of these, no more than six are either exclusively or primarily focused on small-cap stocks. These funds have had a patchy performance with a large amount of volatility and have been unable to give attractive returns even over relatively long periods of time. Of course, volatility is a given in any small cap portfolio because smaller companies tend to react violently to any change of mood. However, the whole idea is that the investment manager will eventually be able to build a decent base of investments in a set of small-cap companies that are on their way to growing out of the category and into being mid-cap companies. Here lies the problem. If a knowledgeable and expert investor were to do this directly, he would probably identify a handful of companies and then would slowly build positions in them.