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Testing Times, But MF Investors in Steady Hands Research Note for iFAST Recommended Mutual Funds 2018-19 iFAST Research
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Nov 03, 2019

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Page 1: Testing Times, But MF Investors in Steady Hands Research ... · birla sun life advantage fund motilal oswal multicap 35 fund idfc premier equity fund aditya birla sun life equity

Testing Times, But MF Investors in Steady Hands

Research Note for iFAST Recommended Mutual Funds 2018-19

iFAST Research

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 1

Our Recommended Funds Author: Dr. Renu Pothen, Research Head, iFAST Financial India Pvt. Ltd.

CATEGORIES RECOMMENDED FUNDS FOR 2017 RECOMMENDED FUNDS FOR 2018-19

EQUITY FUNDS

LARGE CAP

ICICI PRUDENTIAL FOCUSED BLUECHIP EQUITY FUND ICICI PRUDENTIAL BLUECHIP FUND

BIRLA SUN LIFE FRONTLINE EQUITY FUND ADITYA BIRLA SUN LIFE FRONTLINE EQUITY FUND

RELIANCE TOP 200 FUND RELIANCE LARGE CAP FUND

SBI BLUE CHIP FUND SBI BLUE CHIP FUND

KOTAK 50 AXIS BLUECHIP FUND

BNP PARIBAS EQUITY FUND EDELWEISS LARGE CAP FUND

MID CAP

KOTAK EMERGING EQUITY KOTAK EMERGING EQUITY SCHEME

MIRAE ASSET EMERGING BLUECHIP FUND L&T MIDCAP FUND

CANARA ROBECO EMERGING EQUITIES HDFC MID CAP OPPORTUNITIES FUND

SBI MAGNUM MIDCAP FUND EDELWEISS MID CAP FUND

FRANKLIN INDIA PRIMA FUND SUNDARAM MID CAP FUND

NA DSP MID CAP FUND

SMALL CAP

RELIANCE SMALL CAP FUND RELIANCE SMALL CAP FUND

DSP BLACKROCK MICRO CAP FUND DSP SMALL CAP FUND

NA L&T EMERGING BUSINESSES FUND

NA SBI SMALL CAP FUND

NA HDFC SMALL CAP FUND

MULTI CAP

KOTAK SELECT FOCUS FUND KOTAK STANDARD MULTICAP FUND

BIRLA SUN LIFE ADVANTAGE FUND MOTILAL OSWAL MULTICAP 35 FUND

IDFC PREMIER EQUITY FUND ADITYA BIRLA SUN LIFE EQUITY FUND

FRANKLIN INDIA HIGH GROWTH COMPANIES FUND SBI MAGNUM MULTICAP FUND

SBI EMERGING BUSINESSES FUND MIRAE ASSET INDIA EQUITY FUND

ICICI PRUDENTIAL VALUE DISCOVERY FUND PARAG PARIKH LONG TERM EQUITY FUND

FOCUSED - MULTICAP

NA SBI FOCUSED EQUITY FUND

NA AXIS FOCUSED 25 FUND

VALUE L&T INDIA VALUE FUND L&T INDIA VALUE FUND

DIVIDEND YIELD TATA DIVIDEND YIELD FUND TEMPLETON INDIA EQUITY INCOME FUND

ELSS

AXIS LONG TERM EQUITY FUND AXIS LONG TERM EQUITY FUND

DSP BLACKROCK TAX SAVER FUND DSP TAX SAVER FUND

FRANKLIN INDIA TAXSHIELD MOTILAL OSWAL LONG TERM EQUITY FUND

ICICI PRUDENTIAL LONG TERM EQUITY FUND (TAX SAVING)

ADITYA BIRLA SUN LIFE TAX RELIEF '96

RELIANCE TAX SAVER (ELSS) FUND L&T TAX ADVANTAGE FUND

TATA INDIA TAX SAVINGS FUND IDFC TAX ADVANTAGE (ELSS) FUND

GLOBAL

FRANKLIN INDIA FEEDER - FRANKLIN U.S. OPPORTUNITIES FUND

FRANKLIN INDIA FEEDER - FRANKLIN U.S. OPPORTUNITIES FUND

ICICI PRUDENTIAL GLOBAL STABLE EQUITY FUND FRANKLIN ASIAN EQUITY FUND

BANKING ICICI PRUDENTIAL BANKING & FINANCIAL SERVICES

FUND ICICI PRUDENTIAL BANKING & FINANCIAL

SERVICES FUND

PHARMACEUTICALS SBI PHARMA FUND RELIANCE PHARMA FUND

INFRASTRUCTURE

KOTAK INFRASTRUCTURE & ECONOMIC REFORM FUND

KOTAK INFRASTRUCTURE & ECONOMIC REFORM FUND

CANARA ROBECO INFRASTRUCTURE L&T INFRASTRUCTURE FUND

FMCG (2017 ) SBI FMCG FUND SUNDARAM RURAL AND CONSUMPTION FUND

CONSUMPTION (2018 ) NA MIRAE ASSET GREAT CONSUMER FUND

TECHNOLOGY ICICI PRUDENTIAL TECHNOLOGY FUND ICICI PRUDENTIAL TECHNOLOGY FUND

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 2

DEBT FUNDS

SHORT DURATION

HDFC SHORT TERM PLAN HDFC SHORT TERM DEBT FUND

BIRLA SUN LIFE SHORT TERM OPPORTUNITIES FUND ADITYA BIRLA SUN LIFE SHORT TERM OPPORTUNITIES FUND

KOTAK INCOME OPPORTUNITIES FUND BARODA PIONEER SHORT TERM BOND FUND

DSP BLACKROCK INCOME OPPORTUNITIES FUND FRANKLIN INDIA SHORT TERM INCOME PLAN

NA BOI AXA SHORT TERM INCOME FUND

NA DHFL PRAMERICA SHORT MATURITY FUND

DYNAMIC BOND FUND

UTI DYNAMIC BOND FUND UTI DYNAMIC BOND FUND

BIRLA SUN LIFE DYNAMIC BOND FUND KOTAK DYNAMIC BOND FUND

TATA DYNAMIC BOND FUND ICICI PRUDENTIAL ALL SEASONS BOND FUND

DSP BLACKROCK STRATEGIC BOND FUND DHFL PRAMERICA DYNAMIC BOND FUND

INCOME (2017 ) ICICI PRUDENTIAL LONG TERM PLAN ICICI PRUDENTIAL BOND FUND

MEDIUM TO LONG DURATION

(2018)

AXIS INCOME FUND UTI BOND FUND

TATA LONG TERM DEBT FUND NA

FRANKLIN INDIA INCOME BUILDER ACCOUNT NA

GILT

SBI MAGNUM GILT FUND-LONG TERM PLAN SBI MAGNUM GILT FUND

IDFC GOVERNMENT SECURITIES FUND-PROVIDENT FUND PLAN UTI GILT FUND

CREDIT RISK

NA BOI AXA CREDIT RISK FUND

NA BARODA PIONEER CREDIT RISK FUND

NA FRANKLIN INDIA CREDIT RISK FUND

CORPORATE BOND FUND

SBI CORPORATE BOND FUND ADITYA BIRLA SUN LIFE CORPORATE BOND

FUND

NA KOTAK CORPORATE BOND FUND

NA HDFC CORPORATE BOND FUND

HYBRID FUNDS

BALANCED (2017) ICICI PRUDENTIAL BALANCED FUND ICICI PRUDENTIAL EQUITY & DEBT FUND

AGGRESSIVE HYBRID (2018)

SBI MAGNUM BALANCED FUND L&T HYBRID EQUITY FUND

TATA BALANCED FUND HDFC HYBRID EQUITY FUND

MIP (2017) ICICI PRUDENTIAL MIP 25 ICICI PRUDENTIAL REGULAR SAVINGS FUND

CONSERVATIVE HYBRID (2018) BIRLA SUN LIFE MIP II - WEALTH 25 PLAN UTI REGULAR SAVINGS FUND

EQUITY SAVINGS

NA HDFC EQUITY SAVINGS FUND

NA KOTAK EQUITY SAVINGS FUND

NA ICICI PRUDENTIAL EQUITY SAVINGS FUND

NEW ENTRANTS REPLACEMENTS

As I started to write this note for the 12th edition of iFAST Recommended Funds, the pink-hued

newspaper that I grew up reading was screaming with two contrasting headlines:

“CAD on a Hot Tin Roof: D-Street Bulls Flee, Rupee Slips”

and

“Rs 25 lakh crore & counting, MF assets hit all-time high”.

In 2018, although our markets have touched all-time highs while taking us on an adventurous roller

coaster ride, our investors seem to be least perturbed and continue to invest to the tune of “Mutual

Funds Sahi Hai”.

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 3

The reality is that we are in the midst of a waning macro-economic scenario, with slowly improving

micro economic indicators and uncertainty surrounding the 2019 elections causing goosebumps

among analysts and Fund Managers. Soaring oil prices and Trump’s trade policies are only adding to

the discomfort as far as our equity markets are concerned. The debt markets are on similarly shaky

grounds with uncertainty surrounding our currency, the fear that high oil prices will mean inflation

rearing its head up again, and that the RBI will be in no mood to ease the monetary policy stance -

and all this causing the bond yields to move up. The recent downgrades of some of the big

corporates, which are part of Fixed Income Portfolios ranging from liquid funds to long term bond

funds, are giving investors sleepless nights, making them wonder if they have made the right

decision to move surplus money from Fixed Deposits to Debt Mutual Funds.

Wary though they may be, our investors seem to be in agreement with the title of our Outlook

report for 2018: “Keep Calm and Stay Invested“. This easily explains the second headline on the

soaring assets in the mutual fund industry.

SEBI Re-Categorization of Funds

This is the first time in nine years that we have made our investors wait so long for our list of

Recommended Funds. I’d like to explain: this edition should have ideally been released in December

2017, with the team getting into focused mode by the end of October, surrounding themselves only

with the umpteen data points needed to choose the best funds for the year. As I have written before

as well, only a completely quantitative model, depending fully on performance related data points,

will finally yield results without any human interference or any biases from our side. In this process,

we as a team are as eager as our investors to know which funds top the list, and whether the model

punishes any of the long term bets we have taken over the last few years!

However, in October 2017 the SEBI circular announced newly aligned categories of open-ended

mutual funds, defined along strategies as well as the type of stocks or instruments across equity and

debt funds. This meant that each fund house could now have only one fund in each category with

the exception of Index Funds or ETFs tracking different indices; Fund of Funds having different

underlying schemes; and sectoral/thematic funds investing into different sectors or themes. We

view this as a step in the right direction as this not only means clarity for investors but even for

Research teams who would report top 3 performing funds from the same fund house, following

different strategies in the same category. The follow up to this circular of course meant a massive re-

categorization exercise across the industry, with many funds being merged or re-named. The

exercise has gone on well till the end of the first half of this year leading, inevitably, to the delay of

our recommended funds report.

Before I get into the list, let me once again reiterate the iFAST methodology for recommending

funds, and the analysis that took place this year before the model was finally worked out.

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 4

iFAST Recommended Funds Methodology

The recommended funds methodology considers all funds available on the iFAST platform,

segregated into different categories. Next, the funds in each category are filtered depending on two

primary measures:

(i) The fund should have been in existence for at least three years, and

(ii) Their average corpus for the last 1 year should be at least INR 50 crore.

We do not show any exception here and strictly follow this rule across all funds. This filtration is

mandatory across all main categories of funds, that is, equity, debt and hybrid. Once we finalize the

pool, the team runs the funds through our assessment model, which is based on three parameters:

(i) Performance over a 5 year time horizon,

(ii) Expense ratio, and

(iii) The ability of the fund to withstand a downtrend in the market.

The resultant top 10 funds are then run through a subjective test, which includes analyzing factors

like the fund’s investment strategies, its sectoral and stock picks, whether the fund managers

actively manage the portfolios or just follow a buy and hold strategy, and so on, in the case of equity

funds. In case of debt funds, factors like credit quality, average maturity, modified duration together

with the kind of strategies that the fund manager follows during different interest rate cycles is

studied. For the hybrid category, a combination of all these factors is employed to get to the final

selection.

A final important exercise that we undertake before starting work on the recommended funds is to

meet up with a majority of the fund houses to get acquainted with all the products that they have

and the fund management’s views on the strategies. As this is an open discussion, we raise all our

concerns and demand answers with regard to their respective funds during this interaction. Hence,

when we analyze the list of the top 10 funds in each category, this discussion also tends to have a

bearing on the final outcome. After a thorough analysis of all the above mentioned factors, we

finally come out with the top performers in the respective categories, which are then shared with

our associates and investors so that they can take an appropriate call and invest wisely.

To account for the impact of the re-categorization, this year we added an additional step to the

exercise. We collated information on all the impacted funds across different categories and checked

their live portfolios to see if they have changed strategies as per the new mandates. For instance, in

equities, we checked if the funds have started including the stocks from the universe mentioned by

the regulator in different categories, and whether the number of stocks has reduced in cases

whether they were entering the focused category space. For debt funds, our analysis included

checking if proper changes have been made in factors like average maturity and ratings as per the

new strategy mentioned in their SIDs. In the selection of top 10 funds in a particular category, only

those funds that have not changed their strategy in a dramatic way to fit the characteristics of the

new category made it to our final list.

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 5

Fund Categories and Fund Houses

We released our Recommended Funds list for the first time in June 2009 with 20 funds. Over the

years it has only grown in size: it was 55 funds in 2017 and this year the total number of

recommended funds is 70. In 2013, when our recommended funds crossed 50 for the first time, we

had explained to our investors that we are increasing the number of funds in the different categories

as we wanted to give them more choice while creating portfolios. Our rationale was: “There are

times when a fund would have been among the top 5 in a particular category as per our model;

however it might not make it to the final list of recommended funds. This is because we normally

restrict ourselves to publishing just 1 or 2 funds from each category. Hence we get a lot of queries

from the investor community on why the said fund has not been a part of our recommended funds

for the year. To avoid this confusion, we decided to increase the number of funds in categories like

Large caps, Mid caps, Infrastructure, Short term, Dynamic bond, Income and Gilt-Long-Term”.

The increase in the number of recommended funds this year is because we have added a few

categories as per SEBI’s new mandate, like Focused-Multi Cap, Sectoral-Consumption, Medium to

Long Duration, Corporate Bond, Credit Risk and Equity Savings. We decided to stay away from a new

category like Large & Mid Cap in the current list; since we already have categories like Large Caps,

Mid Caps and Small Caps with clear mandates and Multi Caps with a flexibility given to the fund

manager to invest across the market capitalization spectrum, we feel that another category named

Large & Mid Cap funds will be redundant. However, we are not writing off this category altogether;

we will see how the funds are being managed over the course of the year and then take an

appropriate call when we revamp the list next.

For 2018-19, as mentioned earlier, we have 70 funds in the list, and the segregation across equity,

debt and hybrid stands at 42, 20 and 8 respectively.

As far as Fund Houses are concerned, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund refuses to give up the top slot

this year as well, with a representation of 8 funds. From the time we first recommended funds from

the fund house, we have seen several changes at the fund management level and very recently,

some bad news as well. Despite all the uncertainties, our model continues to give a thumbs-up to

Naren and his team. As we wrote last year, "change is the only constant" is how we would like to

describe ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, the best performing fund house on our platform.

The second place in our list is being shared by HDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mutual Fund and L&T

Mutual Fund, with each having 6 funds in the current list.

In June 2009, out of a total of 20 funds, 5 belonged to HDFC Mutual Fund; this number, though, had

been declining in the last few years. To our pleasant surprise, this year we have 6 funds from the

fund house across equity, debt and hybrid. Even when our model has been punishing the funds, we

have always had faith in the Fund Management team there. The exemplary thing about Prashant

Jain - who needs no introduction here - has been his refusal to move away from his conviction on

certain stocks, which were leading to short term underperformances. The stoic personality that Jain

is, he has made sure that the entire team there sticks to their bets despite underperformances and

investor concerns.

Kotak Mutual Fund entered our Recommended Funds list for the first time in 2015 with the Kotak

Standard Multicap Fund (erstwhile Kotak Select Focus Fund) managed by Harsha Upadhyaya. We

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 6

had clearly written at that time that with Upadhyaya at the helm of equities, the funds from this

space are in proficient hands. In November 2014, when this fund first entered our list, it was sized

INR 1400 crore; it has now crossed INR 20,000 crore as we write this note. Last year, a fixed income

fund from the fund house was featured on our list for the first time, and it seems like Lakshmi Iyer,

who heads the Fixed Income space, is making sure that the number of their debt funds on our list

also increases every year.

L&T Mutual Fund entered our list for the first time in 2013 with the inclusion of L&T Special

Situations Fund. At that time, our comment was: “As far as the fund houses are concerned, we have

some new entrants in this year’s list. L&T Mutual Fund finds a place in our list for the first time

with the inclusion of L&T India Special Situations Fund. We are of the view that Lahiri would be

able to keep up the impressive performance that Nitin Bajaj and Anirudh Gopalakrishnan have

been able to put up”. The fact that 5 out of the 6 recommended funds from this house are equity

funds and the sixth is an aggressive hybrid fund that bets heavily on equities proves that Lahiri

knows how to play his game well. The confidence with which he picks stocks - a trait we have

observed in his previous stints as well - has helped L&T Mutual Fund move up the ranks in our list.

There are five new entrants into our list this year, and they are BOI AXA Mutual Fund, DHFL

Pramerica Mutual Fund, Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, Edelweiss Mutual Fund and PPFAS Mutual

Fund. Although the first three fund houses are new entrants into our list, we do have an earlier

connect with at least one fund belonging to each.

- BOI AXA Credit Risk Fund (erstwhile BOI AXA Corporate Credit Spectrum Fund) had been

covered as part of a fund focus report in June 2016. As the fund was launched in February

2015, it could not make it to our model. However, what appealed to us was the fact that it

was parking 60% to 80% of its surplus into structured credit, a theme without any peers in

the fund industry. Finally, this year as the fund made it to our sample list, our model proved

that we have an eye for noticing emerging themes even before these funds make it to the

performance charts.

- DHFL Pramerica Short Maturity Fund (erstwhile DWS Short Maturity Fund) was a part of our

list in 2012 and later in June 2013 as well. The fact that the Fixed Income side at the fund

house is being managed by Kumaresh Ramakrishnan, who was at the helm of Fixed Income

at Deutsche Mutual Fund as well, means that there is a continuity as far as the fund

management team is concerned. This also increases our comfort with recommending Fixed

Income Funds belonging to the Fund House in our list.

- For Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, we had written an NFO note for the Motilal Oswal Focused

25 Fund (erstwhile Motilal Oswal MOSt Focused 25 Fund) when it was launched in April

2013.

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 7

Fund Exits and Entry

The list of recommended funds has undergone a drastic change and is bound to create questions in

the minds of investors on what this means for their existing investments. This year, particularly, the

turnover is huge on account of the inclusion of new categories, our decision to increase the number

of funds in the different categories, and the changes in the classification of funds.

Having said that, there is some upheaval in the list every year, and our explanation to the investors

remains the same as it was in December 2009:

“Previous Recommended Funds Have Not Gone Bad: We usually recommend funds that have the

highest overall rank within their respective fund category / classification, unless they don’t have

the requisite track record. So it may happen that a previously recommended fund no longer

appears amongst the top ranked funds (within that category) for the relevant review period. Our

observation has been that most of the previously recommended funds that have been replaced,

have not performed poorly, but have been dropped by mere one or two ranks (overall list) as a

result of which they have been replaced. Other than choosing the right fund to invest in, a critical

aspect for investing is choosing the right fund category / classification within the relevant asset

class, be it equity or debt. If you have chosen the right fund category to invest in, most funds

within that category are likely to deliver good returns.”

The following table makes our stand clearer. Listed in the table are some of our old bets that were

punished by our model in the intervening years, but are again back in the list this time.

Funds First Part of the List

In

Axis Bluechip Fund (erstwhile Axis Equity Fund) 2014-2016

HDFC Mid Cap Opportunities Fund 2011-2015

Sundaram Mid Cap Fund (Erstwhile Sundaram Select Mid Cap) 2010

DSP Mid Cap Fund (erstwhile DSP BlackRock Small and Mid Cap Fund) 2011-2013

Mirae Asset India Equity Fund (erstwhile Mirae Asset India Opportunities Fund) 2012-2015

Franklin Asian Equity Fund 2012-2013

Reliance Pharma Fund 2010-2013

Franklin India Short Term Income Plan 2011-2016

DHFL Pramerica Short Maturity Fund (erstwhile DWS Short Maturity Fund) 2012 & June 2013

HDFC Hybrid Equity Fund (erstwhile HDFC Balanced Fund) 2012-2016

UTI Regular Savings Fund (erstwhile UTI Monthly Income Scheme) 2010

This clearly means that an exit from the list does not imply an exit from investor portfolios as well.

This table should give confidence to our investors that our model may leave out funds if they don’t

clear the filters; however a few years later the same funds can be back in the list. In cases where we

do revise our opinion of a fund and are no longer comfortable holding onto them in any investor

portfolio, we will definitely update the investors. But if there is no communication from our side,

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 8

investors can continue with their existing SIPs and lumpsum investments into the funds even if they

have moved out of the latest recommendations list.

Some of the exits and the entries from this year’s list that I would like to highlight and explain are:

- Our 2 big bets in the mid cap space, Mirae Asset Emerging Bluechip Fund (2014-2017) and

Canara Robeco Emerging Equities (2015-2017) had to exit the list as they have been re-

classified as Large & Mid Cap Funds. In this scenario, we would advise our investors to

maintain status quo on these 2 funds. However, for the new mid cap exposures in portfolios,

investors should look at funds that strictly fall in this category.

- The twelfth edition of the list has finally seen our long-timers move out completely. Aditya

Birla Sun Life Dynamic Bond Fund, which has been a part of the list since June 2009, has

slipped out as it did not clear the filters of the model this time.

- ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund, which has been a part of the list since 2010, also

made a graceful exit. However, we are hopeful that Naren, being a value investor all his life,

should be able to work his magic and bring back the fund into our list very soon. We had

moved the fund from the value category to the multi cap category in 2016. However this

year, as per the new categorization, it goes back to its old label of being classified as a value

fund.

- In 2015, we had written that SBI Small Cap Fund (erstwhile SBI Small & Midcap Fund) would

be the next big mid cap bet from the SBI stable. However, as this fund was closed for fresh

subscription due to the capacity constraint of INR 750 crore as per the SID,it could not even

make it to the sample list in 2016. After re-categorization, it has been classified as a Small

Cap Fund and is now part of our list as one of the best performing funds in this space. And

better still, it is once again open for subscription, although with certain limits.

- SBI Focused Equity Fund (erstwhile SBI Emerging Businesses Fund), which was our

recommended multi cap fund last year has been moved from the multi cap space to the

Focused –Multi Cap category as per the new mandate. The fund has turned out to be the

best performer in the current category.

- AXIS Focused 25 Fund, a new entrant this year, was featured in our Fund Focus for

December 2017 and this was our reason for introducing this fund to our investors: “After 19

months under Gopani's stewardship, we elaborate our analysis of the strategy and the

portfolio to understand if he is yet again trying to recreate the magic he did with the Axis

Long Term Equity Fund. In which case, we would like the first mover advantage like we did

earlier and recommend this fund to our investors”. This fund never made it to our list

previously as we did not have a particular category called Focused and as such there were

very few funds in this category.

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 9

Conclusion

To conclude, we are going through a very volatile phase economy-wise, and in the coming months

you can expect there to be too much noise on both, the domestic and global fronts. With elections

around the corner, we will know soon whether the current bosses at North Block will get one more

term and be able to implement more reforms for the economy. India’s valuations are already

unattractively high with a few stocks in the indices moving up while RBI is giving us the impression

that if the currency and inflation decide to play spoil sport, we can expect rate hikes. Uncertainty in

the global markets on account of the trade wars and rising oil prices are all going to give the markets

a tough time.

In this scenario, I would like to sign off by saying that every correction should be used by the

investors to enter the markets, and not waste time by pressing the panic button to exit from the

existing funds. This is consistent with our view that mutual funds are the best instruments to create

wealth in the long term. This, however, does not mean that a review of the portfolio should not be

done on a regular basis until all goals have been achieved. Our standard recommendation is that all

equity funds should be held for more than 5 years and the selection should be based on the

investors’ respective risks profiles. This is because markets go through cycles and hence the benefit

of this investment can be reaped only if they are held for the stipulated time period. But for our

Fixed Income investors, the approach should be selection of funds depending on the time horizon

and risk profile. For instance, if the investors’ desired holding period is only 2 months, then they

should consider liquid funds, while if they have a time period of 3 years and if the risk profile is

aggressive, then they should go in for Credit Risk Funds.

"Stay calm while the markets go aslant and the very same markets will reward you for

your patience" is how I would like to conclude my note, as always.

Happy Investing!!!

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Recommended Mutual Funds for 2018-19-iFAST Research 10

DISCLAIMER: THIS REPORT IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS AN OFFER OR SOLICITATION FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION, PURCHASE OR SALE OF ANY MUTUAL FUND. ANY ADVICE HEREIN IS MADE ON A GENERAL BASIS AND DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE SPECIFIC INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE OF THE SPECIFIC PERSON OR GROUP OF PERSONS. PAST PERFORMANCE AND ANY FORECAST IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF THE FUTURE OR LIKE PERFORMANCE OF THE MUTUAL FUND. THE VALUE OF UNITS AND THE INCOME FROM THEM MAY FALL AS WELL AS RISE. OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. MUTUAL FUND INVESTMENTS ARE SUBJECT TO MARKET RISKS, READ ALL SCHEME RELATED DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY.