Have you ever asked yourself how many mutual funds you should own ?
In an earlier article, we saw the rational behind how many stocks one should own. Let us check in a similar way, how many mutual funds one should have.
Whenever you think finance, think simple. Remember that complex financial products do not contribute to good financial planning in any way and the more you have of them in your portfolio, the messier it is.
As far as mutual funds are concerned, the number of mutual funds you should invest in is an important ingredient to the success of one’s portfolio.
How many mutual funds should you own?
When you put your money into a mutual fund, you are looking to diversify your risk and gain more returns. You want to diversify to reduce the risk of losing your money and you want to gain more returns to make your money multiply (and fly out to the Bahamas).
Basic diversification can be achieved by spreading your money into asset classes equity and debt. That makes a simple case of having minimum two mutual funds, one that puts your money into equity and another into debt.
Now within these asset classes, if you were to put your money in only one equity diversified mutual fund (or in only one debt oriented mutual fund), there is a risk that these asset classes could under perform over a period of time and cause a dent to your capital.
To exemplify, let us see some numbers as to what they could do to your investments.
Suppose you put in Rs 10,000 in X mutual fund (equity or debt, take your pick). If over one year, the mutual fund performance has gone down by 50% (imagine for a moment), the total market value of your holdings will be Rs 5,000. Now that is a huge blow.
As a basic risk management mechanism, you should spread your eggs into another basket and not put them in one. Suppose you chose to buy 2 mutual funds instead of one (2 equity or 2 debt) and you put in equal money into both. That makes it Rs 5,000/- each in X and Y mutual fund.
After a year, if X were to under former by 50% and Y were to outperform by 50% (continue imagining for a moment like you did about Bahamas), your total holdings will be Rs 2,500 in X mutual fund and Rs 7,500 in Y mutual fund – a total of Rs 10,000/-. You have at least preserved your capital by spreading your risk.
Compare this with the earlier scenario where you were left with just Rs 5,000 after a year of under performance of the only mutual fund you held.
Taking cue from this, it is safe to extrapolate that within equity and debt, one is wiser to have two mutual funds than just one.That takes our total to a minimum of 4 mutual funds one should own to reduce risk.
Of course, there is no limit to risk management you can do and one could extrapolate this figure to say that within equity, one could invest in largecap, midcap and small cap mutual funds and within debt, into long term and short term debt mutual funds. This extrapolation is correct but research has proved that the maximum number of mutual funds that is right for one’s portfolio is around 7-8. Beyond that, you can forget the Bahamas trip.
Let’s agree with the experts for a moment.
This is how the 7-8 mutual fund can be composed.
- Pick 2 large cap equity diversified mutual funds.
- Pick 2 mid cap equity diversified mutual funds.
- Pick 2 sectoral or thematic mutual funds.
- Pick 2 debt mutual funds.
Things to note
- It is not true that you need to necessarily have 7-8 mutual funds, please note that this is the maximum you should have.
- The number you pick depends on your goals, risk taking capacity and time horizon.
- You need to choose more equity mutual funds than debt because returns from equity are more than debt over a long period of time. This follows from the premise that you are investing in mutual funds to generate money for a long term goal.
- Choice of fund houses and the funds themselves should be done based on their performance and how expensive they are.
- Try and put at least 50% of your money into large cap equity funds. Large cap equity funds are safe in nature and should be your core portfolio. Putting in maximum money here ensures most of your money is safe.
- How much money to put in mid cap, small cap, sectoral funds and debt funds will be dependent on asset allocation of the investor.
- Avoid ramping up mutual funds in the guise of New Fund Offers.
- Look to sell out under performing funds every 1-2 years on a minimum.
- Before you add a mutual fund to your portfolio, check what value add it brings.
- If you begin to forget the name of the mutual funds you hold, its time you bring down the numbers.
Advantages
- Keeping funds to a maximum of 7-8 allows you to manage them. The more funds you have, the more time you spend tracking them.
- More funds will not de-risk your portfolio more. Risk mitigation can be achieved with 7-8 mutual funds. Beyond that, its all noise.
- More mutual funds mean more churning eventually via buying and selling. This will lead to increase in costs for the investors.
Remember mutual funds are the best way to make money for small investors and should be leveraged through systematic investment planning.
Does this mean that if we have more than 7-8 funds we need to sell ? How do we decide which ones to let go of ? Where will we invest that money which comes to us. Good information.
@Shruti, Yes, you might need to sell. Where to put that money is dependant on many things – where your money is currently, what is your asset allocation etc etc, among many other things.
How do decide which MF to sell – I will cover ina future article.
I totally agree. Around 10 mutual funds are ok in a portfolio. more than that, it becomes tough to manage. I also agree that most of your money should go in big mutual funds as they are safe. more money in small funds can cause portfolio to go down with losses.
@Parvesh, Goog going Parvesh. You sem to be a knowledgeable investor.
Hi
I have currently invested in HDFC tax saver MF which is an equity based MF. which do you think is a good debt MF to invest in 2011?
@Maneesh, Debt MFs have different agendas. You need to first ask yourself why you are investing in a DEBT mf – what is the time horizon that you are looking for. Deoending on that devt MFs can be chosen.
Here are some income funds you can consider :
Birla Income plus
Sahara Income Fund
Reliance Income Fund
ICICI Pru Income G
Can PPF be a substitute of long term Debt-MF?
@Chandan,
For people who want to protect their capital PPF would be the best choice, also the returns would be in the range of 8-9%. As for long term Debt MF you could expect returns in the range of 10-12% with minimal risk.
Thanks of the feed. Is it really possible to get 10-12% frm Debt fund? Pl suggest me some of them. Some five/four star rated fund returned only 6 to7% since last three yrs. I’m little bit confused of it. Waiting for reply…
@Chandan,
Rahdey had done an article on long term debt funds, please read through it.
https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2012/04/23/long-term-debt-mutual-funds/
I don’t think you can/should compare PPF and a Debt MF. They are for different purposes and probably both whould have a place in portfolio.
Can you suggest me if the debt funds are better or equity based funds are better. As I understand, the equity based funds are dependent on the marktet and there is a chance of making loss if the stock market is going down. Also, let me know how will an individual be able to assess this?
@Ravi, hey Ravi, one needs to have different reason to invest in both. You cannot compare them as it is like comparing apples with oranges.
Debt funds are meant for safety so offer lower returns while equity funds are meant for growing your money so carry high risk.
You need to have a mix of both in your portfolio.
Does this answer your q ?
Hi,
I am planning to invest in the following mutual funds thru SIP.Can you please give me your suggestions on this?
ICICI prudential focused blue chip equity fund – 3000 pm
HDFC top 200 – 2000 pm
ICICI pru discovery – 1000
@Rekha, you want to go for long term invstmnt or shrt trm invstmnt?
@siddharth,
I am planning to invest for 5 years and more.
@Rekha, then u can go for sm of these mf’s-
1. hdfc top 200
2.dsp br small and midcap
3.birla dynamic bond
4.icici pru discovery
5.hdfc prudence
these are sm of the funds recommended by experts and are comparatively safer…..u can expect a 15% return.
@siddharth, Thanks alot. I will go with your suggestions
i want to start investing in mf’s .where to start with?
means whom to contact. dont want to invest through an agent….
sm1 please guide me through the steps………
@siddharth, Do you have a DEMAT account ?
@Radhey Sharma, no i don’t have a demat account……
@siddharth, Open a DEMAT account and get started. If you go with any brokerage firm they will guide yo how to invest in MFs. In not, come back here and we can chat again.
@Radhey Sharma,
A DEMAT account is not needed for investing in mutual funds.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, Yes you don’t. Where is the article is that mentioned ? I went to edit and did not find it ?
@siddharth, You can also invest in MFs through moneysights.com for free. If you are going to invest only in MFs then that is the way to go.
@Manickkam, There are n number of ways by which you can invest in MFs. MoneySights is one of them.
Hi ,
I have invested 3000 Rs through SIP in DSP Black Rock Top 100 RP Fund(Started from June 2011) , 3000 Rs(for 1 year , now stopped(from June 2010 – May 2011) in HDFC Top 200 Growth Fund .
I want to invest Rs 2500 in some good ELSS in order to save Tax .
Please suggest good fund for tax saving.
Also I want to invest in good mutual funds(equity as well as debt) 5000 Rs , please suggest some good funds . Also suggest some good liquid funds for short term .
Also would like to invest in shares , please suggest few good shares to start with .
My aim is to gain wealth .
Regards
@jyot,
for tax saving MFs read : https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2011/05/06/best-tax-saving-mutual-funds-elss-of-2011-in-india/
I am looking to invest Rs. 3 lacs in MFs for a long term (3-5 years). Pls advice which funds would be better and amount to invest in each.
Warm regards.
Naveen
@Naveen Tewari, Read –
https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2012/01/08/3-best-large-cap-mutual-funds-to-invest-in-2012-in-india/
https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2012/01/11/4-best-large-and-midcap-mutual-funds-to-invest-in-2012-in-india/
@Naveen Tewari,
It is not advisable to invest lump sum in equity mutual funds.Monthly SIP is the best mode.Investment horizon should be more than five years.For a first time investor it is better to start with a good balanced fund like HDFC Balanced for medium term investment.
@Naveen,
Radhey has already come up with his list for large, mid-cap and small cap MF. Please read it and do you own research and invest.
Rakesh
Thank you very much Mr. Sharma. Wise choices. Many thanks once again.
Warm regards.
Hi,
I want to start investment in Mutual fund. Please tell me few…
i want 1 taxsaver fund, 1 for short period around 3 to 5 year, and 1 for long term investment…
I dont have any knowledge in Mutual fund… midcap, debt, equity.. so please give a little idea about all.
Regards…
Moin
@Moin, I would not want to invest in equity to pull out money before 5 years, so the question is why go for tax saving mutual funds if you are looking to get your money back within 3 years.
then which one you recommend for me, i also want to save some tax also. only i want to invest for short term, rest one or two fund i can invest for long term also… please suggest, at least one should be taxsaver.
I dont have knowledge in mutual funds.
@Moin, As I said, for short term, do not invest in equity. I recommend you try Monthly income Plans – take HDFC MIP and for long term, take any equity MF or tax planing MF.
thanks… then please suggest two best monthly income plan… and two tax saver MF… i will choose one in both… Reply soon..
@Moin, Go with HDFC MIP and ANY tax saver from the above. Go with first 2, why 4 ?.
Moin,
Please read through the articles which Radhey has published on large/small/mid-cap MF and you will get an idea of the same.
Then do your own research and invest in those funds.
No spoon feeding please?
Rakesh
@Moin,
Agree with Radhey. If you don’t have any knowledge on MF then you are in the right place. Kindly read through various articles which Radhey has written and you will gain knowledge. Please do your own research and invest, after all its your hard-earned money.
Rakesh
@Radhey, i have lumsum money to invest? MF is not recommended as everyone is talking abt SIP.
@sks, I think you do not realize the different between MF and SIP.
MF is an investment avenue for you. SIP is a way to get into it.
Try reading this –
https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2010/10/13/systematic-investment-plan-sip-of-mutual-funds-the-basics/
@Radhey Sharma, Thanks for clarifying, but what i wanted to ask was is it not recommended to invest lumpsum amount in MF?
@sks, It is never recommended to invest lumpsum amount in MFs. You should always stagger it and go via SIPs.
This way you will be safe than sorry.
@Radhey Sharma, sure, but what is the best investing avenue to invest lumpsum money?
@sks, You can consider below options for lumpsum investment but they are all debt instruments.
1) Fixed Deposits – they are pretty safe but attract income tax and hence not a smart choice. The returns are 6-7% post tax.
2) FMPs [Fixed Maturity Plans] – they are much better compared to FDs as you pay only 10% tax under long term capital gain [LTCG] and may be lesser if you can take advantage of indexation. But you have to stay invested at least for one year to earn good returns. The returns are around 8-10% post tax. There are changes expected in this post DTC and it may not be so attactive.
3) Capital protection plans – Again a good investment and you pay only 10% tax under LTCG but the lock-in period is 25 months. The returns are around 10% post tax. You may check plans from Birla sun life.
4) Tax free bonds – PFC and NHAI launched these a while ago and now Indian railways is expected to launch it soon. The lock-in period is 10 years but you get annual interest of 8.2%, which is not taxable. There is no option of compound interest.
5) PPF – If you have PPF account then you may put lumpsum money in that. I think the revised interest rate is 8.6%. However the limit is 1 lakh and as you may know PPF account is locked for 15 years but all earnings are tax free.
6) Balanced/Debt MFs – This is definitely debatable. Many people say that MFs should be via SIPs but in my opinion some lumpsum amount say around 50k can be invested in balanced and debt MFs. You can get around 12% returns or may be more but stay invested for at least 3 years to get good returns.
Hope this helps. Happy investing!
@Vivek K, Thanks Vivek for your nice contributions. Agree with you on this.
@Sks,
It depends on your risk appetite. If you want to safeguard your money then you can invest in FD. If you can take little risk then you can invest in MF Monthly Income Plans or MF Balanced Funds.
If you don’t need this money for the next 10 years then you can invest it in Equity.
Rakesh
@Rakesh, I was thinking that even if one were to invest for 5 years, equity needs to be an option. No ?
@Radhey Sharma, Agree with Radhey on this one. If you look at top diversified equity funds and check last 3-5 years returns, they are pretty impressive at 30+%.
@Radhey Sharma,
For a time frame of five years I will go for equity oriented hybrid funds like HDFC Balanced/HDFC Prudence.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, So would I.
Radhey,
5 years is also short but you can expect decent returns depending on the local and global scenario but over 10 years you will definitely get good returns.
Rakesh
@Radhey,
I used to be a fund collector 5 years back. Had over 30 funds, used to invest randomly in NFO’s. It’s only since last 2 years i have streamlined everything and brought that count to 10.
Hi Radhey,
I am not sure if there can be a benchmark of 7-8 funds. It all depends upon the strategy of the investment which promotes the number of funds.
For example, the basic categorisation which you may have is Large Cap, Mid & Multi Cap, Small Caps, Sector Funds, Gold Funds, Balanced & Debt Funds. Ideally, I would like to have 2 funds for each category so that I am not overly dependent upon one scheme per category. So if I have the above example, I would have 2 Large Caps, 2-3 Mid Caps, 1-2 Small Cap, 1 Sector, 1 Gold & 2 Balanced / Debt funds. This would make the total to around 10-11 funds. This may sound a large number, but doesn’t it justify its existence ? It is not a random selection, but a carefully thought through plan. What would be your opinion ?
Regards
BFA
@Banyan Financial Advisors, Sorry, who in BFA am I talking to ?
A name will be good.
I agree to an extent but only if the investment corpus is HUGE. For an investment of say Rs 10,000 oer month, I think 11 – 12 is a large number.
Not sure why 3 mid caps are required.
Now, the point is that one can get to the same state even with 8 fund and even with 11, just that 11 becomes a bit “extra” to manage.
With a carefully thought plan, it will make sense obviously.
@Radhey Sharma,
Very well mentioned. I completely agree that for a 10K a month, it won’t make sense to have 10 SIPs of 1K each. However, for a 50K per month SIP, it would make sense to have adequate diversification.
3 MidCaps – I think the basic reason being that MidCaps may comprise a material % of the SIPs and hence not giving a single fund manager of a MidCap scheme to rule the destiny of the SIP.
@Radhey Sharma,
I agree that the number of funds in a portfolio will also depend on the investment amount.Risk appetite of the investor as well as time horizon of investment are also important considerations.If the investor is new with no previous experience of investment in mutual funds,time horizon is less than five years, risk appetite is moderate and investment amount is relatively small,I will prefer to go only for either two balanced funds or one balanced fund and one large cap fund.I will consider sector funds, thematic funds,midcap and small cap funds only for aggressive portfolio.Moreover, one fund each from large cap, large and midcap,multicap and mid & small cap is enough.It is important to see the number of stocks in the portfolio consisting of funds.Selecting two funds from each category makes no sense if it only leads to the duplication of stocks in the portfolio.Diversification in styles and not in numbers is needed.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, Of course, that is key. Makes no sense to have enough numbers of funds but with no diversification.
Risk and time horizon are two very important factors as you rightly state.
My choice would be one from each category namely Large cap, Multi-cap, Small-caps, Mid-caps & Debt funds.
I am investing 2000 per month in SIP of Magnum Contra growth MF since 2009. Value of my investment if around 52k whereas the value is only 42k as of now. Should I discontinue this fund?
@Jey, Get out of it please, its gone to the dogs long back.
@Radhey Sharma,
After starting our SIPs we can not afford to sit on the portfolio.All the funds in the portfolio have to be monitored for performance by comparing against the index as well as peers.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, How often do you monitor Anil ?
@Radhey Sharma,
My feeling is that if you do your home work properly before selecting funds then very frequent monitoring is not needed.If you started with a portfolio with all funds having five star rating then they are not going to fall to three star rating over night.As a matter of routine I get my portfolio statements from CAMS and KARVY once a month.This is just to know how the funds are doing but I don’t attempt to make any changes to my portfolio once a month.I started my SIPs with two funds around four years back.During this period I have added a few funds including one gold saving fund last year but so far I have not exited from any fund.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, A question for both Anil and Radhey: –
Although my time horizon is long term say 15 years. If I see the MF I have invested is giving 30% returns in 3-4 years time, should I book the profit and come out of it or stay invested? The long term returns may not be that high.
@Vivek K,
Asset allocation, diversification and rebalancing are the basic rules of investing.At different stages of life we have to maintain different asset allocations.A person who has just landed his first job can have asset allocation of 80% equity and 20% debt whereas a person who is nearing his retirement will have 30% equity and 70% debt.These are rough allocations where other assets like property and gold have been ignored.So we can broadly say that with advancement of age our equity allocation goes on decreasing.For achieving this we have to keep on rebalancing of our assets.Rebalancing is nothing but periodic booking of profits in the asset class with higher growth.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, Thanks Anil for answering this. You are spot on.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, Thanks Anil, you have answered my query well. I think now I know what I’d do 🙂
@Anilji,
Agree with your strategy but what if one of your fund has been an under-performer for two-three quarters. Will you still hold on to it or switch to better performing funds?
Rakesh
@Rakesh,
The purpose of tracking is to weed out the non performing fund from our portfolio.But since we are doing long term investments we have to take a long term view of this.We should not exit a fund based on its short term non performance.While evaluating fund performance we have to see performance over market cycles.To give you an example if you see the performance of HDFC Top 200 and HDFC Equity during the last year,you will find that a lot of funds have performed better than these two funds during last year but nobody will advise you to get out of these funds based only on the performance of last year as over a period of three and five years their performance is good and they are still rated as five star funds.
On the other hand if you consider the performance of Reliance Growth and Reliance Vision funds which have a great past history have consistently performed poorly and everybody will tell you to get out of these funds.
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA,Spot on Anil. What do you do ?
@ANIL KUMAR KAPILA, Very good going sir.
@Anilji,
Thanks for your detailed reply. The reason i asked you this question was i had Sundaram select focus fund in my portfolio few years back, at that time it was a very good fund but over the last couple of years it has underperformed. So it would make sense to switch to better performing funds rather than sticking to it and waiting for its performance to improve.
HDFC Top 200 and HDFC Equity are gold mines….
@Jey,
Agree with Radhey, its performance has been pathetic. I had it in my portfolio few years back.
As many of you my know, it can be mathematically proved that diversification does not improve with increase in no of funds. It is also a practical matter that management becomes difficult.
However some are of the view that returns will be affected with more funds. I think this is difficult to prove If we discount obvious mistakes like too many sector funds, NFOs etc.
I have 3 goals and about 60-70% equity comp in each of them. The equity comp. for each goal is distributed among 2-4 funds ( so a total of 10 funds). 70-80% of the equity comp is large cap, old funds with prove track record. All funds are 5* or 4* funds for many months running. When the sensex fell by ~ 25% last year my mf portfolio suffered only by 8% at the end of the year. Perhaps this is a one off and I was lucky.
I am criticized for having so many funds. I was told only 4 funds max. and not more than 1 fund from 1 AMC. I disagree with both.
If we fear returns are going to suffer from more MFs we must be clear about ‘with respect to what’.
Say I plan for a goal with 10% return from equity. Say I have 15 funds. As long as most of the funds if not each give me annualized returns close to 10% I am okay.
MF A could have given 35% YOY and MF B 11%. I don’t care if I was not invested in MF A. My goal is achieved that is what is important. Not ‘more returns’.
All funds from a single AMC is extreme. To say ‘not more than 1 fund from 1 AMC’ also sounds a bit extreme.
My point is generic advice will work only when it mathematically valid. Lack of diversification with increase in funds is a great example of this. Not ‘less returns’.
@pattu, It’s good to know Pattu that you have defined your goals clearly and investing accordingly.
I really like when you said you don’t care if you are not invested in MF A because it has given more returns and happy with MF B as long as your goals are achieved. This tells that you are goal oriented investor and not attracted to the greed of equity. This is the only reason I think why people keep cribbing about equity. They become greedy and end up losing their money and then start cribbing.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it will help the readers.
@Pattu,
Thanks for sharing your goals, I like when you mentioned you have 60-70% in equity. Even i have more equity component in my investment. If we can take the risk there is nothing like this, It will only help to achieve our goals earlier. Initially i used to be a fund collector but over the years have streamlined and brought that count down to ten.
@pattu, “I am criticized for having so many funds. I was told only 4 funds max. and not more than 1 fund from 1 AMC. I disagree with both.”
I agree with you, a person can have more than 4 funds and from the same AMC. These are just guidelines. One can tweak the guidelines to fit in the requirements.
As you yourself rightly say, it is more important to get to the goal, the returns are then a by product.
But 15 funds are huge as well. I think max 10 is doable. After that managing them is so cumbersome.
Good stuff Pattu !
@Radhey Sharma, Even I have multiple funds from HDFC, they have too many good funds to ignore :).
Also, I read somewhere that if you can’t remember the names of the funds you have invested in, time to bring the count down. I use this as my guideline.
@Vivek,
Same here, i too have HDFC Top 200, HDFC Prudence in my portfolio.
As long as Prashant Jain is with HDFC i know my money is in safe hands. I have been following him for a very long time.
@Rakesh, HDFC mid-cap opportunities is also a good fund from the HDFC house.
@Vivek,
So is HDFC Equity, i forgot to include that in the above list.
@Rakesh, Indeed but you can’t have them all, you have to pick 1 or 2.
@Vivek,
Yes ideally we should pick 1 or 2 from a fund house but incase of HDFC they have quite a few funds which have performed very well.
Hi Suresh ,
I am planning to invest in mutual funds through SIP. I am planning to invest 8 K per month with duration of 10 + years. I am planning to segregate the amount into 3 funds. Could you please suggest the 3 best mutual funds to invest. Also plz let me know if it is a good idea to invest only in 2 mutual funds
Thanks
Srini
@Suresh,
Kindly refer to the below link and you will get all the information-
https://www.thewealthwisher.com/2012/12/14/best-mutual-funds-to-invest-in-2013-in-india
I am investing in the ICICI Focused Bluechip@3000pm, Hdfc Top200@3000pm and Prudence@2000pm. Now I want to invest in mid and small cap Rs 2000pm. but i am bit confused between IDFC premier equity and ICICI discovery. Please advice.
@Parag,
Both are very good funds, you may select any one of them. As you already have invested in ICICI fund you can go with IDFC.