Different Schemes under Mutual funds

Tax Saving Schemes

These schemes give tax rebates to the investors under explicit requirements of the Income Tax Act, 1961 as well as saving in Capital Gains under section 54EA and 54EB, as the Government offers tax incentives for investment in particular avenues. Pension schemes offered by Mutual Funds, equity linked savings schemes are allowed as deduction under Section 88 of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961. For example investing in diversified equity fund will never give you any tax benefits whereas investing in ELSS will show the tax benefits in the year of investment itself. The amount you invest in one financial year (April 1 to March 31) will be deducted from your taxable income that year. Tax-saving schemes mainly aim towards growth so they basically invest in equities. However, the risks associated with them are similar to any equity scheme.

Index Schemes

Under this scheme the mutual funds also called Index Funds imitate the performance of a specific index. The American index that is most commonly imitated is the S&P 500 by buying all 500 stocks using the same value as the index. BSE Sensex, the NSE S&P CNX 50 in India, NASDAQ 100, Russell 2000, MCSI-EAFE, Wilshire 5000 etc are the other popular stock indexes followed. These funds invest in a set of securities which moves according to a popular index used as a benchmark.and are called passive funds. The index determeines the choice of investments thus leaving the fund manager with no research on securities. However he only needs to adjust the funds i.e. buy and sell shares with change in Index. Thus the passive performance of funds is obvious causing a lower expense as compared to actively managed funds. The net asset value in Index schemes is directly proportional to the index they follow. However due to some factors such as tracking errors the percentage of change varies with each security. This variation is always mentioned in mutual fund document provided.Traditional Index schemes allow the change the share price only once a day. A new type of funds – Exchange-traded funds(ETFs) have a different approach. These index funds sell shares at a price that changes throughout the day, thus increasing the liquidity. Their practical approach have made them a hot cake financial tool with a bright future.

Sectoral Schemes

Sectoral Schemes are the ones that invest solely in particular sectors such as Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), Metal Industry, Information Technology, Petroleum Stocks, and Pharmaceuticals etc. The profits are dependent on the performance of particular industries. Unlike the equity schemes the portfolio of these schemes is limited to the particular sectors or industries. Therefore the risk factor associated with these schemes is usually high. A close watch on the rise and fall in the values of these securities is a must in order to avoid any unexpected results. Thus the user must exit from the scheme once there is a fear of losses in that particular sector else there is a risk of losing investment.