Published Paper Details:

In India, there are various investment avenues available for investors to invest and earn profitable return. Among the others financial products, investment in mutual fund ensures the minimum risks and maximum return to the investors. The need and scope of the mutual fund operation has increased as the emphasis is being made on increase in domestic savings and improvement in diversification of investments. Thus it became important to study the mutual fund industry and the performance of the mutual funds. This study aims to evaluate the performance of a few select mutual fund schemes of India. A Mutual Fund is a trust that pools the savings of a large number of investors who share a common financial goal. Each mutual fund has common financial goal and the money is invested in accordance with the objective. Fund is managed by a professional fund manager, who is responsible for implementing a fund's investing strategy and managing its portfolio trading activities. Each investor in the mutual fund participates proportionally (based upon the number of shares owned) in the gain or loss of the fund. Any investor can invest minimum amount that is affordable and diversify their portfolio in different sectors depending upon their interests and risks. The money thus collected is then invested in capital market instruments such as shares, debentures, and other securities in accordance with objectives as disclosed in offer document. The investment is done by the mutual fund through the expertise of a team of professional money managers. Investment in securities is spread across a wide cross-section of industries and sectors and thus the risk is reduced. Diversification reduces the risk as because all stocks may not move in the same direction at the same time in the same proportion. The combined holdings of a mutual fund are collectively known as the mutual funds portfolio. Mutual fund issue ,,units" to the investors in accordance with the quantum of the proportion of money invested by them. ,,Units" are nothing but a large number of small fractions of equal value a fund are divided into. Investors of mutual funds are known as unit holders. The income earned through interests and dividends from the investments and the capital gains realized by a fund on sale of these investments are shared by its unit holders in proportion to the number of units owned by them.