The performance of a mutual fund scheme cannot be done in isolation and it has to have some reference point or yardstick for comparison. The index to which the scheme is benchmarked provides such a reference point for comparison of the performance. If the scheme gives higher returns than the benchmark’s returns, it is said to have outperformed the benchmark during a given period of time; however, if it gives lower returns than that of the benchmark, the scheme is said to have underperformed the benchmark.

In India, an average investor barely knows about money market mutual funds (MMMFs), and even if he is aware, he seldom ventures to invest in these funds. There is a tendency among Indian investors to opt for known investment avenues such as bank fixed deposits, bonds, debentures, PPF, etc. The lack of awareness amongst investors about MMMFs deprives them of a good investment opportunity.

If you are planning to invest in securities such as fixed maturity plans (FMPs), closed-ended mutual funds, tax-free bonds or non-convertible debentures, you need to know that these securities are illiquid as there are not many buyers and sellers of these securities in the market.

The trade war tensions have escalated and the Asian markets have been rattled and have reached 6-month low post the deepening of trade war between the US and China.

Indian benchmark indices which remained subdued for almost the entire trading session, gave the last hour bounce back to close nearly 0.7 per cent up. Broader markets too closed in green but underperformed the benchmark indices. All the sectors closed in the positive territory where pharma followed by all banking sectoral indices and FMCG outperformed the markets.

Fund houses in India are launching ESG Funds. Read on to find what are these ESG funds and should you be investing in them.

Dr Lal PathLabs gave its prolonged multiple resistance breakout on Friday in the zone of 920-930 levels. The stock should sustain 930-932 levels on all daily, weekly and monthly closing basis to witness significant upside in future.

Brent oil rose on Friday after witnessing three consecutive red days as Russia and Saudi Arabia called for an increase in the output. The outcome of the meet has been discounted and Brent rose on Friday expecting a output hike by OPEC in the meeting scheduled later during the day.

In testing market condition on the last trading day of the week as well as the last day of subscription for two IPOs RITES and Fine Organics, investors seem to be wanting to subscribe these IPOs.

Following stocks are close to their 52-week low as at 12.23 p.m. on June 22, 2018.