In this part, I will share my experience with MF investments in greater detail, what worked for me and what did not and where I stand today as regards MF, and finally, what I propose to do in the time to come. Regardless of the time or the year in which you are reading this series, the basic principles would remain the same only the finer points would have undergone some changes to keep pace with the changing times.

My MF Investments

As I have mentioned earlier, I am a disciplined person in terms of money management. In the olden days, dividends or interest warrants used to be received via postal mail, and depending upon the time of the receipt of the mail, I used to immediately walk over to the bank - 15-20 minutes away and deposit the cheque over the counter, get the acknowledgment and file it safely.

Given the above traits developed from my school-college days, I started whatever amount was possible for me to save into MF after I was introduced to India Infoline Ltd. I had a good RM who used to keep me informed on more than once a week basis and I used to follow his guidance in making new investments. One very important thing I did was that I never withdrew any amount from any of these investments and used it for consumption or any unproductive asset. As I kept evolving, I realized that some MFs stall after a period of a few years and then do not give that much incremental return than the earlier years. I used to exit the profit portion of such MFs and place them in NFOs of sectors that were in the running or were the hot picks.

The above process helped the gains compound over a period of time and I followed this process at least twice in a year. Another point I used to do as far as new funds investments were that as and when an MF scheme used to announce that it would declare a dividend of X%, I used to buy the scheme’s units, get the dividend income, and invariably, once the NAV used to go ex-dividend, it used to go even lower than that and at that time, I used to reinvest the dividend amount received in the same scheme. After a certain period of time, the NAVs used to be back up and way above the exit level, and thus, I was able to not only compound my investments in my unique way. My RM was also surprised with the approach and he then started recommending it to his other clients.

I was fortunate that almost the entire suite of MFs that I had invested in worked well for me and some of them I am still holding as there is no reason for me to exit - the investments have given me excellent returns over a long period of time that my capital has become “free” or I am using the market money to stay invested.

Now, no more MF investments for me

However, I have stopped making any new investments in MF for the last 3 years as I have during the last 3 years, become active in the stock market and have realized the famous response that the legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones gave to a question -

Where would you prefer to invest your spare funds?

His answer --

There is no better place than investing in my own fund/schemes or strategies as there was no better fund manager for his funds than he himself.

Initially, I thought it was a bit arrogant, but over a period of time, I have realized that what he said makes more than 100% sense as there is no one on the earth who understands my money better than myself.

So, I now make my own investments in terms of positional traders' indirect equity and manage them in line with risk and money management principles.

It is only when I feel that the funds that have been released from direct equity cannot be deployed in the market either because there are no suitable opportunities per my approach or the market is not conducive, I park such funds in to debt or liquid funds from where money can be removed and credited to the demat ledger in 1 working day.

Another type of investment

This is something that is somewhat complex so I will avoid the discussion at this stage and would take it up as the last part of the series.

I hope you have found this part to be insightful and in case you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you & Happy Investing,


P.S. Disclaimer - The views expressed here are purely for educational and informational purposes only and not a recommendation or advice in any manner. I am not a SEBI regd., so please consult your financial advisor or be your own decision-maker as you may deem fit.