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Zerodha Does allow only direct funds. You can buy funds across fund houses from there. There is no corelation between demat account and direct /regular funds. Since zerodha allows you to trade via their kite platform they hold for investment in demat form. That's it. Zerodha is one of the better platform and stable one out there for mutual funds.

I don't know about Zerodha, but if you have a demat account with ICICI or HDFC, you cannot buy direct funds. Check if the fund you want to buy has "direct" in its name. Example:
Axis Bluechip Fund - Direct Plan.

I guess low cost platforms like Coin Zerodha, Groww and others allow you to buy direct funds compared to ICICI or HDFC.

How to buy direct funds has been discussed many times in the Mutual Funds thread. Just look it up.

Thanks,
Pradeep

Thanks for the suggestion guys. I got so lost on 'choosing' the right fund, I never looked at how the Zerodha platform works. I'll read up and understand how their Kite platform works now that I have an account.

I have a bunch of SIPs that I have been investing since 2010 or later. Owing to the market crash, few of them have obviously tanked but few of them have been consistently performing bad even before that.

The ones in red currently are :
Franklin India Smaller Companies Fund (Started in 2015 and currently at -2.77%)
Franklin India Focussed Equity Fund (2016, -1.56%)
HDFC Mid Cap Opportunities Fund (2017,-2.10%)
HDFC Tax Saver (Bulk investment last year for 80C, -19.76%)

I invest in few more which are having average to decent in these times, which is expected.

My question is regarding the Reds. We have an investment broker who helps our family with picking the funds since 8-10 years so we really do not keep track of fund performance or study the picked funds. Based on the bad performance of these funds, I had asked him if we could pull out of these and reinvest in better performing funds, but he has asked me to hold on and mentioned that these funds use a buy & hold strategy and that they don't churn their portfolios very little. Though I am not investor savvy to understand that, I honestly don't see how these are going to recover considering the markets have climbed back to 60-65% before the Covid crash. Can any expert shed light on this and is that the right strategy for these above-mentioned funds?

Finally lost patience and opted for a SWP once again from Franklin Bluchip to completely wipe it out (Earlier I had an SWP running for 16 months to withdraw 50% of amount). This fund I was holding from 1998. But consistent investment into fund started only by 2005. Hope my decision is correct.

I currently have invested in Sbi Equity Hybrid fund Direct Dividend reinvestment. While the performance has been decent, I dont even remember why I chose dividend instead of growth. I have the highest allocation to this fund dont see any benefit with respect to dividend. In the last two years, there has only been one dividend announced which is again a paltry sum compared to the invested amount. I just want to get rid of this and move it to growth option and continue investing in the fund. Will it have any tax implications if I switch between dividend and growth? And is it advisable to do this switch since I believe it will count as a fresh investment at this NAV which is on the higher side and later might turn red, though ideally I would still be at profit since my earlier invested value with the dividend option was lesser.

Is this move recommended for a long term benefit or should I just stick to the dividend reinvestment option?

While all Infrastructure funds are doing badly, Aditya Birla Sun Life Infrastructure Fund seems to be worse off. VR had downgraded it to 1 star.
I don't need the money now and can afford to wait-only i don't see this fund recovering even though the market has recovered sizeably.

HDFC top 100 seems to be doing quite badly too.

What gives?

Investors in MFs are severely affected by moving queue syndrome. We feel all other funds are giving handsome returns sans the funds you are holding. This may be true to some extent. But mostly a mirage since all funds face cyclic ups and downs. This prompts investors to switch only to realize the older fund is now moving fast. :)
If you see the trends objectively one will realize most of the funds are underperforming the broader indices. This can be seen in the 1,3, 5 and even 7 year returns. This when market has mostly recovered from Covid lows and near old peak. Few will be performing better, but we have more than a thousand funds in India.

In all fairness, i don't think it is the moving queue syndrome. It has progressively depreciated (:eek:)! It has also to do with the timing and quantum of churn that the fund manager may have exercised, and due to bad calls/timing has further eroded the fund value. Maybe.

What is happening with Franklin Templeton? Today I 'paused a SIP' from franklin templeton india tax shield. When others in the same ELSS space are doing ok, why is this fund giving negative returns?

Now, I have to find another avenue to invest the paused amount. Not looking at ELSS options, as it is of no use to me, rather have to look at somewhere else. Any suggestion on which sector to invest in, I already have pharma and bluechip, perhaps increase flow to pharma?

In case this is for long run with moderate risk factor, best option is to invest in the index funds. No one can gauge if banking or pharma is going to deliver better returns. However, investing in index funds always ensures that you always match the market returns (with lower fund management fee).

I have started to invest through Zerodha Coin app in Direct mutual funds. The amount of money one can save through direct MFs is just amazing, I really feel bad that I didn't do it earlier.The Coin App is simple and easy to use, no complaints so far.

I was earlier an active investor and used to invest directly in equities. Later, I changed to MFs for convenience. However, most MFs have been performing really poorly and are struggling to beat the index. I suggest investing in balanced funds or very high quality multicap funds. Otherwise, stick to index funds (nifty and nifty next). Also, I don't see any point in having more than 3-4 funds in anyone's portfolio.


I have reduced my MF exposure by half and started investing directly in equities. I think with some time and discipline, I will be able to beat most of the MFs as they are anyways not performing. Also, I came across a pretty cool investing platform called 'smallcase', which offers a lot of nice choices.

Yeah, I guess best is to just fund the money to MOS S&P500 as I had suspected all along!

What funds according to your evaluation are very high quality multi caps?

@audioholic, A dividend reinvest plan is different from a growth plan in that the dividend is given to you in the form of additional units. Ideally, a growth plan will yield more, because the additional units in a dividend reinvest plan may be purchased at a higher NAV (i.e., fewer units). So overall gain will always be better in a pure growth fund.

Re tax implications, again, div reinvest is not great because the dividend reinvested as units is seen as a fresh investment, and short term capital gains may come into the picture if you redeem them within a year of receiving the div units.

You could switch out to the growth plan, but the profits you've made will incur short/long term capital gains tax depending on when you invested, when you received dividend, and when you finally switched out. If the amount is not too large, your switch to growth may not incur much in taxable terms.