Best Mutual Fund out of these, from a 2-3 years holding perspective?

Question

Which one is the best fund to invest from a 2-3 years holding perspective.The returns have to be the best, but it has to be primarily a large cap fund with minimum or no mid cap exposure:-

Franklin India Prima Plus
Reliance Vision
Franklin India Bluechip
HDFC Satellite & Core

Answer 1

While the three of these (FIPP, RVF, FIBCF) have a long term record, HDFC S&C is a newbie. But all the four are being managed by some of the best fund managers India has seen so far.

But when you apply the “minimum or no madcap exposure” filter as required by you, only FIPP and FIBCF stand a chance. FIBCF has few midcaps which are on the verge of becoming large caps. FIPP has a portfolio of mainly large caps peppered with a few midcaps. Both these funds have grown along with their fund managers who have managed these funds from their inception. Head or tails both are winners and you can choose one among these without any worries.

Please have a look at the Analyst review section about these funds in valueresearch website.

Good luck.

Answer 2

It all depends on how aggressive you plan to play the market. In my personal opinion, I would pick Franklin India Bluechip-G because it has a diverse holding and that India, in general, is growing at a rapid rate. It has a good stability of a 2-3 year timeframe.

Answer 3

Why invest in a mutual fund when you are paying fees and with a little research you can find stocks,or commodities-especially gold that will rise to 1000 per ounce in the next 2 years with all the geopolitical problems and the move of major investment away from the U.S. dollar,or currencies-do your own homework-I good stock can pay your commisions.

Answer 4

Let’s look at Investment Company of America (ICA), owned and operated by American Funds (AF). AF is an awesome fund company for a couple of reasons. There are several advantages and disadvantages:

1.AF is a private company which means they only answer to their MF holders. Fidelity is a good company also, but they are owned by stock holders. In the long run the company that only answers to you, the MF holder, is going to look out for your best interests.

2.AF also has some of the lowest annual fees to maintain an account of any MF company. All that being said, depending on your situation ICA may or may not be good for you. You need a competent advisor to help you with that.

3.I would be cautious with ICA as it is one of the largest MF in the world. They may seem like a good thing but it actually can be bad. It means it has much less flexibility to move its money around when conditions warrant it.

4.As far as EJ goes, they hire people on average who have very little experience in the industry, so at a minimum make sure your rep has a lot of experience and didn't just start last month at this. They also have agreements with companies like American Funds where their reps get a bigger commission to them then they do with other products. The concern being your advice from EJ might be tainted by the reps desire to get more commission. You need to work with an independent rep to assist you with you decisions; one who will give you all the information and doesn't have a hidden agenda.

Now let's look at MF's, in general, or the decision to use one at all.

If you invest in a MF, you have turned that responsibility over to someone else. To me, they are mostly the same, in general, in terms of results. Fewer than 10% can beat the Dow or other index it follows because of their fees. Why would you pay someone you don't know, whom will almost certainly underperform the market, an annual fee of 2.5% to do something you can do yourself, and do it better by buying an ETF, without any input from you after the initial purchase? An ETF is a publicly traded “Exchange Traded Fund, that trades just like a stock). Just buy the Diamonds (the DJIA ETF) if you want to let it ride on the Dow, or the Spyders (SPY - the S&P 500 ETF), or the Nasdaq (QQQQ), or diversify across the entire market by buying all three. The ETF's trade just like a stock or MF. If you want to diversify, and you want to Buy and Hold, buy an ETF.

A MF is always "in" the market, so you are at the mercy of the ups and downs of the Dow. Since you don't manage your risk, you can't put a Protective Stop on a MF, at say 10%, to lock in your profits when the market goes down. Since you spend more time watching TV, or more time deciding the color of your new car, than you do on learning how to manage money, you don't have a clue what's going to happen. That is not my idea of investing.

Actually, if done properly, it is more work to investigate all of the MF's and their advisors and their traders and their fees and their methods, than it is to investigate all the similar applicable info about stocks. You shouldn't choose to be ignorant, regardless of your investment vehicle, and just blindly turn your money over to a stranger because they are "listed," like you do at a bank. Some MF's are downright reckless and go out of business. Stocks are "listed," as are commodities and ETF's and everything else. With a mutual fund, you've just added a whole new set of unknowns to the equation, simply because you don't want to know anything about it.

The market is a living thing that does what it wants, and will go where it wants, when it wants. Nobody knows these things. Your question seems to interject that somebody has "The Answer." The best you can do in any investment is try to increase your odds of success and reduce your risk. You can do these things yourself, but not in a mutual fund.

MF's are so 20th Century. Relics of the past. Unneccessary. Buy an ETF. Or sell an ETF short and bet on the downside. There are two sides to every market, not just the upside.

If you invest in the stock market right now, or just buy into all the ETF's you can afford, it's a crap shoot, like rolling the dice, and the odds are probably not in your favor, whether you have an expert fund manager or not, because mutual funds are always "in" the market.

They say "Buy and Hold" for the long term is better, but that depends on when you get in, and what your definiton of "long term" is. The phrase "Buy low and sell high" infers that you buy after a decline; decidedly not the case here.

The Dow has approached all-time highs last seen in Jan 2000 and failed, so if your long-term definition is more than seven years, then you won't mind waiting another seven years for a profit.

In my opinion, the name of the game is capital preservation. When the risks are high, like right now, you get out of the stock and bond markets and park your cash in a interest bearing money market fund or CD or Treasury Bill.

This is simply not a good entry point for investors. Be patient, wait a few months, and you'll be able to buy much more stock a lot cheaper, the risks will be lower (even though they will seem higher), and your chance of success greater.

If you wish to research the “Buy and Hold Strategy” further, or perhaps trade yourself, I recommend two book titles. One is called "Which Is Better, Buy-and-Hold or Market Timing?" The other is "Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Market Timer?" They will give you plenty to think about.