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Fidelity are pulling out of India. The two lead contenders to buy them out seem to be HDFC and Pramerica. I know the former very well, but have not been able to get much info on the latter. Any information please?

Interesting. I have been investing with them since 2003. Have done a few redemptions as well. Never had any problems. And incidentally, one of my best performing fund is from Reliance.

I too have no confidence in the Reliance MFs, dont know why, but I dont seem to have any confidence in the Reliance group

I have SIPs in

HDFC top 200 Growth fund
ICICI Prudential Focused Blue Chip growth fund
HDFC Midcap Oppurtunities Growth Fund
Benchmark Gold Bees ETF- Equity SIP (This is not a Mutual Fund)

Any suggestions??

@Chaand and LOKSIN; Some of the best performing MFs in recent history have been from Reliance, but I do not trust them. In fact I try and avoid all MFs from Business Houses. I am in DSPBR, Fidelity, FT, HDFC, HSBC, ICICI-Pru and IDFC.IthinkI have enough fund houses. Iamwatching Fidelity, if HDFC buys it it is fine, if Pramerica gets them then I may have to be on my toes, since they are an unknown quantity, but then so were IDFC when they bought out StanC MF, who had taken over the Grindlays MF!.

Loksin
Hi
HDFC top 200 and ICICI focused are both very good funds.
I have invested in both these funds and in ICICI as recently as last week.Small amounts.Instead of SIPs I prefer lumpsum.Easier for me.
Regards

As per Crisil rating HDFC Top 200 is now average buy and ranked 3 in that category. Also they advice to switch.

Any idea about switching to another fund house? , will that totally blemish the idea of rupee cost averaging

@rajswiftvdi; A lot depends on the time horizon. Many funds which dropped the least in 2008-09 and were 5* at that time, have dropped to 3* now. You cannot expect to be conservative in falls, and aggressive in rises.

Those rankings move up and down all the time. The ratings are mostly based on something called risk adjusted returns - highest possible returns with the lowest possible risk (volatility). Unless the returns lag the index by a huge margin for 2 or 3 years, it doesn't make sense to keep switching, just by looking at the stars!

Pick a good fund house, pick a fund that has been around for 10 plus years, and invest for a long term. Even if the fund manager changes, it doesn't matter THAT much - because that particular fund will have certain investing processes that the new fund manager follows to a large extent.

It is very difficult to get better returns by switching - because it is highly likely that the fund you switched to will slide down from 5 to 3 stars, while your old 3 star fund has crept up to 4 stars. It's like deciding which queue will be faster - the one you are standing in or the one next to you.

Hi everybody
Smart Cat has a valid point.Switching may not be wise at times.However there are are a lot of exceptions like in the last few quarters SBI Magnum Tax Gain has underperformed the benchmark specially after Sanjay Sinha left.
What happens in the future nobody can predict.Good funds underperform and bad fund out perform.
A great example by smartcat.Moment you change to the other queue the earlier one starts moving faster.
Regards

I agree with both smartcat & faustus77. The basic point of the ratings is that they may be working on a shorter time horizon then we are. When I invest I stay invested for years. This may not be true of sectoral funds so they may need to be switched. Let me add that you stand to lose 0.2% (post 1 April) + the commission of the broker (not if you switch within the fund house) every time you move.

Yes, ratings do move up and down, my own view is that as long as it is 3* or higher no point in messing around. What I was indicating was that the funds which were 5* in the big crash, were either lucky or defensive/ conservative. So to expect them to dance the tango now is not realistic. I frankly expect the market to move horizontally for some more time, may be till the 2014 elections.

It is quite interesting, if you look at funds in the same class you will find their portfolio also very similar. The differentiators may be one or two scripts, and timing of the buys/sells. So it hardly matters in the long run.

L & T Financial have bought out Fidelity. A real dark horse. They will be renamed L&TMF. Let us see how things go.

Hello,

Can you please tell what will happen to the customers of Fidelity. I mean I am invested in Fidelity , so what will happen to my units ?

@mitrajdeep; Nothing. I has DSPML > DSPBR, and Grindlays > StanChart > IDFC. The teams are moving as well, only the Equity Fund team may be there for a shorter time. Earlier L&T had taken over Cholamandalam (or is it Coramandalam) as well. The fact that Fidelity wanted to exit was known quite some time ago.

Planning to SIP in the following:

HDFC Top 200
DSPBR Top 100
HDFC Prudence
IDFC Premier
Franklin Bluechip

Also planning to buy sometimes into Gold ETF. Any suggestions?

HDFC Top 200 , HDFC Prudence and IDFC Premier are top performers in their respective categories. Don't know about the other two. I personally stay away from ETFs. The reason being their redemption depends on the liquidity the AMC maintains by employing the market makers. If you redeem an amount in a normal MF you are guaranteed to get your money back but I am not sure about how the AMC maintains the liquidity in ETFs. Moreover there is nothing as liquid as physical gold. Most of the advisers on tv programs donot talk about their liquidity(some do). Do check their volume from the dmat account before buying.

What to do if you are stuck with an illiquid ETF| ET Slide Shows