Saturday, January 29, 2011

Mutual Funds For Beginners

By Sachin Gupta


Financial planning for the future is something that every person thinks about. There are many reasons why you need to plan for the future. It may be for your childrens future-their education. It may be for your retirement. You may also be simply planning ahead ,putting away money to buy your dreamhouse or to buy a car.

There are a lot of means by which to make your money grow for you. Most Indians invest in gold. It is an age old tradition because the value of gold is always appreciating. A lot of people also invest in bank fixed deposits. They are a very good way to lock in a particular amount of money for a particular time period.

Postal savings are another way to put aside a small sum of money each month. Mutual funds are also an excellent way to plan your future. However, many people avoid mutual funds or invest in the stock market. This is mainly due to the obvious risks involved in such investments.

But as the saying goes 'there is no such thing as a free lunch!' In order to obtain good returns, you have to be willing to take certain risks. A Mutual Fund is an investment tool that pools the money of a group of people so as to build a huge corpus. The money thus pooled is then invested in the stock market by a group of financial experts. These experts are called fund managers.

Investing in mutual funds is not as difficult as many would imagine it. All that is required is to have a demat account with a bank and you can connect to many portals online. These portals provide all information necessary for investors wishing to invest in mutual funds.

There are many different funds available for investment. They are generally classified as equity funds, bond funds and money market funds. All mutual fund plans are variants of these three asset classes. Equity funds that invest in growing companies are called growth funds, while investing in companies in a certain sector are called sector funds or special funds.

Investing in funds involve some risk as equity refers primarily to shares in a company. But these funds in the long term provide good yields. Fixed income funds are more appropriate for investors who want to lock their money and also enjoy tax advantages they offer.

The most important thing to remember when investing in mutual funds is diversification. Investors should invest in a basket of securities form high-rick to the most stable. This helps to keep the investment portfolio balanced even during market fluctuations.




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