Personal Fund Management

May 8, 2008

PAN /KYC APPLICATION FORMS DOWNLOAD

From FEB 1 onwards SEBI has made a strict announcement to the mutual fund industry saying that any application form which is 50000 Rs and above has to submit a KYC APPLICATION FORM attached with a XEROX PAN COPY and an ADDRESS PROOF

PAN & KYC Requirements for Investors SEBI Circular on PAN Points of Service(POS)
Application Forms
KYC Form for Individuals KYC Form for Non-Individuals PAN Application Form PAN Application Form - Instructions

Apr 30, 2008

Brief on RBI Credit Policy and Equity Markets

The Policy: No change in policy rates. No major change in stance, except a verbal stress – ‘high priority’ in terms of inflation. Though, there is admission that ‘growth’ is important and RBI does not want to hamper growth at this stage. Clearly, the current bout of inflation is a supply-side issue and that too global commodity price led and tinkering with policy rates would not have been a good for an already slowing economic growth. RBI has opted to further increase the CRR and squeeze liquidity in the interim, while expressing readiness to act swiftly in case of any further adverse developments on the inflation front. It is debatable whether tinkering CRR is going to be enough in fighting this kind of inflation. Rupee appreciation appears to be a more direct and effective way in combating inflation in the current context and for the large good.
Markets: Equity markets main worry is growth and no action on policy rates is a sigh of relief. Interestingly, RBI has projected GDP growth at 8.0-8.5% and seems more bullish than the street. Most projections are in the range of 7-.0-8.0% for FY09. Is the RBI behind the curve? Not really, considering the fact that they have been ahead of the curve in the last couple of years and have achieved a caliberated slowdown in growth through their tightening earlier in 2007. Effectively, however, the credit policy does not change much in so far as equity markets are concerned. What is crucial, going forward, is whether global growth slows down appreciably or not. If not, then the inflation pressures will continue and that can lead to serious tightening at the cost of domestic growth, especially in the light of upcoming political environment. If yes, then we benefit as inflation will come down and we can actually decouple from the rest of the world. Global slowdown and global commodity price correction is important for us to maintain the ‘higher growth, lower inflation’ period of the last few years. Meanwhile, we maintain our view expressed in our note ‘Testing Time, This too will pass’. We expect continued volatility in the short term, but in the medium to long term expect superior returns from Indian equities. Use the volatility to your advantage. Invest in a phased manner over the next few months, but with a long term horizon of at least 2-3 years.
Our Portfolio Strategy :No change in strategy. Impact on banking sector is minimal. Banking sector is a classic pass-through sector as it effectively passes on any rise/fall in interest rates. In terms of sector strategy, we are overweight on banking, oil & gas, media, consumer, and engineering sectors. We are underweight on metals, pharma, construction, IT services and real estate sectors. We continue to play our three themes – domestic consumerism, domestic investment and beneficiaries of global slowdown - in differing orders of preference

India funds among top performers for Gulf investors: Lipper

It is not resident Indians alone who have gained from the country's capital market rally last year - the Gulf investors also earned big with India-focused equity and debt funds emerging among the best performers in the region. According to data compiled by international fund tracking firm Lipper, funds registered for sale in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region recorded an average gain of 19.26 per cent in 2007, with Equity India emerging as the second best performing category after Equity China. The Indian rupee-dominated bond funds were the best performers in the bond category with about 20 per cent return. The India-focused equity funds gave an average return of 71.08 per cent, against the overall average of 26.40 for all the equity funds. Returns from the rupee-denominated general bond funds and government bond funds stood at 21.56 per cent and 19.79 per cent respectively. This, compared with an overall average return of 9.94 per cent for the bond funds. Among the sector funds, those focused on technology, media and telecom (TMT) were the top performer with 106.12 per cent average return. Gulf investors took cognisance of the undervaluation of TMT sector, but they "were more attracted to funds investing in the technological sector in Asia, most particularly in India," Lipper said. While noting that utilities was the second best performing category, Lipper said Reliance Diversified Power Sector Fund-Growth was the top performer in this segment with 152.01 per cent return. Run by Anil Ambani group Reliance Mutual Fund, India's largest fund house, invests mainly in the country and has Reliance Energy and Tata Power as its top holdings. China's JF China Pioneer A-Share topped the overall equity category with a whopping 157 per cent return. However, Indian funds grabbed as many as 19 positions among the 20 top performers, Lipper said in its annual review report for GCC- registered funds. These included six funds from Reliance Mutual Fund stable, four schemes each of UTI MF and Birla Sun Life, three DSP-Merrill Lynch schemes and two HDFC MF schemes. Among the bond funds, the rupee-denominated schemes gained from the appreciation in the Indian currency. "The Indian rupee appreciated 10.65 per cent against the US dollar over the year, inflating the performance of underlying Indian assets," Lipper said. Bond INR General category was the top performer with 21.56 per cent return, followed by Bond INR Government at 19.79 per cent. Investors from the Gulf region are aggressively betting on Asia, particularly on India, the study stated, adding that "the recognised expertise and growing market of the outsourcing and offshoring business in India attracted significant foreign fund flows to the country, boosting the stock market in India." GCC countries have been aggressive during the past few years in investing abroad through sovereign funds and is estimated to have invested over the past six years around 700 billion dollars. "Equity China, Equity India, and Equity Turkey were also among the best performing classifications. The worst performing funds in 2007 were real estate Europe funds, real estate global funds and Japan small- and mid-cap funds," said Lipper.

PSEs free to park funds in any MFs

Navratna and miniratna central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) will have the autonomy to invest their surplus funds in mutual funds of their choice. The government has allowed CPSEs to park 30% of their cash surplus either in equity or debt instruments or money market mutual funds. The centre has clarified that the overall cap of 30% is applicable for investment in public sector mutual funds as a whole and not just equity schemes of public sector mutual funds. “The government has not prescribed any individual cap on investment in equity or debt related mutual funds. CPSEs can put their entire money in either of them subject to the limit of 30%,” an official in the department of public enterprises (DPE) said. Earlier in August last year, the government had allowed PSUs to invest in equity schemes of Sebi-regulated public sector mutual funds. None of the central PSEs were, however, able to put in their money in mutual funds in the past eight months owing to ambiguities in the guidelines. Now, with almost all the ambiguities being cleared, PSUs can begin with their investments. “We received requests from several ministries and PSUs about the limit. Subsequently, it has been clarified that CPSEs can invest even in debt and money market related schemes of mutual funds,” the official said.