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Unit Trust of India is the first Mutual Fund set up under a separate act, UTI Act in 1963, and started its operations in 1964 with the issue of units under the scheme US-64.

SEBI is the regulatory authority of MFs. SEBI has the following broad guidelines pertaining to mutual funds :
(1) MFs should be formed as a Trust under Indian Trust Act and should be operated by Asset Management Companies (AMCs).
(2) MFs need to set up a Board of Trustees and Trustee Companies. They should also have their Board of Directors.
(3) The net worth of the AMCs should be at least Rs.5 crore.
(4) AMCs and Trustees of a MF should be two separate and distinct legal entities.
(5) The AMC or any of its companies cannot act as managers for any other fund.
(6) AMCs have to get the approval of SEBI for its Articles and Memorandum of Association.
(7) All MF schemes should be registered with SEBI.
(8) MFs should distribute minimum of 90% of their profits among the investors.
(9) There are other guidelines also that govern investment strategy, disclosure norms and advertising code for mutual funds.

Currently there exist balanced funds, Income fund, Growth funds, Sector funds etc. To get more details about the different funds and their features please visit our mutual fund glossary.

That depends on the strategy of the concerned scheme. But generally there are 3 broad categories. A dividend plan entails a regular payment of dividend to the investors. A reinvestment plan is a plan where these dividends are reinvested in the scheme itself. A growth plan is one where no dividends are declared and the investor only gains through capital appreciation in the NAV of the fund.

For retail investor who does not have the time and expertise to analyze and invest in stocks and bonds, mutual funds offer a viable investment alternative. This is because:
(1) Mutual Funds provide the benefit of cheap access to expensive stocks
(2) Mutual funds diversify the risk of the investor by investing in a basket of assets
(3) A team of professional fund managers manages them with in-depth research inputs from investment analysts.
(4) Being institutions with good bargaining power in markets, mutual funds have access to crucial corporate information which individual investors cannot access.

One can invest by approaching a registered broker of Mutual funds or the respective offices of the Mutual funds in that particular town/city. An application form has to be filled up giving all the particulars along with the cheque or Demand Draft for the amount to be invested.

Performance indicators like total returns given by the fund on different schemes, the returns on competing funds, the objective of the fund and the promoter’s image are some of the key factors to be considered while taking an investment decision regarding mutual funds.

A systematic investment plan is one where an investor contributes a fixed amount every month and at the prevailing NAV the units are credited to his account. Today many funds are offering this facility.

A systematic investment plan (SIP) offers 2 major benefits to an investor:
(1) It avoids lump sum investment at one point of time
(2) In a scenario of falling prices, it reduces your overall cost of acquisition by a process of rupee-cost averaging. This means that (3) at lower prices you end up getting more units for the same investment.

While the concept remains the same of collecting money from investors, pooling them and investing the funds, the target investors are different. In the case of portfolio management the target investors are high networth investors while in case of mutual funds the target investors are the retail investors.

No. With effect from 1st October 1998, units of a mutual fund gifted by unitholders are no longer chargeable to Gift Tax.

Yes. Income from mutual funds in the form of dividends is entirely exempt from income tax provided the fund in question is a equity/growth fund where more than 50% of the portfolio is invested in equities.

Some important rights are mentioned below:
(1) Unit holders have a proportionate right in the beneficial ownership of the assets of the scheme and to the dividend declared.
(2) They are entitled to receive dividend warrants within 42 days of the date of declaration of the dividend.
(3) They are entitled to receive redemption cheques within 10 working days from the date of redemption.
(4) 75% of the unit holders with the prior approval of SEBI can terminate AMC of the fund.
(5) 75% of the unit holders can pass a resolution to wind-up the scheme.

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The article mentioned below, is for the investors who have not yet started investing in mutual funds, but willing to explore the opportunity and also for those who want to clear their basics for what is mutual fund and how best it can serve as an investment tool.

Bonds are basically the money which you lend to the government or a company, and in return you can receive interest on your invested amount, which is back over predetermined amounts of time. Bonds are considered to be the most common lending investment traded on the market.
There are many other types of investments other than stocks and bonds (including annuities, real estate, and precious metals), but the majority of mutual funds invest in stocks and/or bonds.

To protect the interest of the investors, SEBI formulates policies and regulates the mutual funds. It notified regulations in 1993 (fully revised in 1996) and issues guidelines from time to time. MF either promoted by public or by private sector entities including one promoted by foreign entities is governed by these Regulations.

SEBI approved Asset Management Company (AMC) manages the funds by making investments in various types of securities. Custodian, registered with SEBI, holds the securities of various schemes of the fund in its custody.

According to SEBI Regulations, two thirds of the directors of Trustee Company or board of trustees must be independent.
The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) reassures the investors in units of mutual funds that the mutual funds function within the strict regulatory framework. Its objective is to increase public awareness of the mutual fund industry.

A mutual fund is just the connecting bridge or a financial intermediary that allows a group of investors to pool their money together with a predetermined investment objective. The mutual fund will have a fund manager who is responsible for investing the gathered money into specific securities (stocks or bonds). When you invest in a mutual fund, you are buying units or portions of the mutual fund and thus on investing becomes a shareholder or unit holder of the fund.

Mutual funds are considered as one of the best available investments as compare to others they are very cost efficient and also easy to invest in, thus by pooling money together in a mutual fund, investors can purchase stocks or bonds with much lower trading costs than if they tried to do it on their own. But the biggest advantage to mutual funds is diversification, by minimizing risk & maximizing returns.

Diversification is nothing but spreading out your money across available or different types of investments. By choosing to diversify respective investment holdings reduces risk tremendously up to certain extent. 

The most basic level of diversification is to buy multiple stocks rather than just one stock. Mutual funds are set up to buy many stocks. Beyond that, you can diversify even more by purchasing different kinds of stocks, then adding bonds, then international, and so on. It could take you weeks to buy all these investments, but if you purchased a few mutual funds you could be done in a few hours because mutual funds automatically diversify in a predetermined category of investments (i.e. - growth companies, emerging or mid size companies, low-grade corporate bonds, etc).

1. Open - Ended Schemes:

An open-end fund is one that is available for subscription all through the year. These do not have a fixed maturity. Investors can conveniently buy and sell units at Net Asset Value ("NAV") related prices. The key feature of open-end schemes is liquidity.

2. Close - Ended Schemes:

A closed-end fund has a stipulated maturity period which generally ranging from 3 to 15 years. The fund is open for subscription only during a specified period. Investors can invest in the scheme at the time of the initial public issue and thereafter they can buy or sell the units of the scheme on the stock exchanges where they are listed. In order to provide an exit route to the investors, some close-ended funds give an option of selling back the units to the Mutual Fund through periodic repurchase at NAV related prices. SEBI Regulations stipulate that at least one of the two exit routes is provided to the investor.

3. Interval Schemes:

The risk return trade-off indicates that if investor is willing to take higher risk then correspondingly he can expect higher returns and vise versa if he pertains to lower risk instruments, which would be satisfied by lower returns.  For example, if an investors opt for bank FD, which provide moderate return with minimal risk. But as he moves ahead to invest in capital protected funds and the profit-bonds that give out more return which is slightly higher as compared to the bank deposits but the risk involved also increases in the same proportion.

Overview of existing schemes existed in mutual fund category: BY NATURE

• Diversified Equity Funds
• Mid-Cap Funds
• Sector Specific Funds
• Tax Savings Funds (ELSS)

2. Debt funds:

The objective of these Funds is to invest in debt papers. Government authorities, private companies, banks and financial institutions are some of the major issuers of debt papers. By investing in debt instruments, these funds ensure low risk and provide stable income to the investors. Debt funds are further classified as:

• Gilt Funds: Invest their corpus in securities issued by Government, popularly known as Government of India debt papers. These Funds carry zero Default risk but are associated with Interest Rate risk. These schemes are safer as they invest in papers backed by Government.

• Income Funds: Invest a major portion into various debt instruments such as bonds, corporate debentures and Government securities.

• MIPs: Invests maximum of their total corpus in debt instruments while they take minimum exposure in equities. It gets benefit of both equity and debt market. These scheme ranks slightly high on the risk-return matrix when compared with other debt schemes.

• Short Term Plans (STPs): Meant for investment horizon for three to six months. These funds primarily invest in short term papers like Certificate of Deposits (CDs) and Commercial Papers (CPs). Some portion of the corpus is also invested in corporate debentures.

• Liquid Funds: Also known as Money Market Schemes, These funds provides easy liquidity and preservation of capital. These schemes invest in short-term instruments like Treasury Bills, inter-bank call money market, CPs and CDs. These funds are meant for short-term cash management of corporate houses and are meant for an investment horizon of 1day to 3 months. These schemes rank low on risk-return matrix and are considered to be the safest amongst all categories of mutual funds.
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3. Balanced funds:

As the name suggest they, are a mix of both equity and debt funds. They invest in both equities and fixed income securities, which are in line with pre-defined investment objective of the scheme. These schemes aim to provide investors with the best of both the worlds. Equity part provides growth and the debt part provides stability in returns.
Further the mutual funds can be broadly classified on the basis of investment parameter viz,
Each category of funds is backed by an investment philosophy, which is pre-defined in the objectives of the fund. The investor can align his own investment needs with the funds objective and invest accordingly.

• Growth Schemes: Growth Schemes are also known as equity schemes. The aim of these schemes is to provide capital appreciation over medium to long term. These schemes normally invest a major part of their fund in equities and are willing to bear short-term decline in value for possible future appreciation.

• Income Schemes:Income Schemes are also known as debt schemes. The aim of these schemes is to provide regular and steady income to investors. These schemes generally invest in fixed income securities such as bonds and corporate debentures. Capital appreciation in such schemes may be limited.

• Balanced Schemes: Balanced Schemes aim to provide both growth and income by periodically distributing a part of the income and capital gains they earn. These schemes invest in both shares and fixed income securities, in the proportion indicated in their offer documents (normally 50:50).

• Money Market Schemes: Money Market Schemes aim to provide easy liquidity, preservation of capital and moderate income. These schemes generally invest in safer, short-term instruments, such as treasury bills, certificates of deposit, commercial paper and inter-bank call money.

• Tax Saving Schemes:

Tax-saving schemes offer tax rebates to the investors under tax laws prescribed from time to time. Under Sec.88 of the Income Tax Act, contributions made to any Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS) are eligible for rebate.

• Index Schemes:

• Sector Specific Schemes:

There are three ways, where the total returns provided by mutual funds can be enjoyed by investors:

• If fund holdings increase in price but are not sold by the fund manager, the fund's shares increase in price. You can then sell your mutual fund shares for a profit. Funds will also usually give you a choice either to receive a check for distributions or to reinvest the earnings and get more shares.

Advantages of Investing Mutual Funds:

Disadvantages of Investing Mutual Funds: