DSIJ Mindshare

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.