Funds Returns vs Investor Returns

If an investor is getting poor returns there is blame to be spread all around. Obviously there is conflict of interest, sales pressures, excessive loads, high fees, charges not being transparent, etc.

However one thing the media surely does not want to say is tell the investor that he/she suffer from a lot of problems THAT ARE SELF CREATED.

After all the ‘reader’ is looking for an escape when the opens a magazine – blame SEBI, the mutual fund industry, the bank, the life insurance company, the agent, …so that the ‘reader-client’ is happy.

Also one secret of the mutual fund industry is there is a HUGE GAP between the fund returns and the investor returns. The investor gets much less returns even in good schemes – because of the clients’ overconfidence, market timing, over-diversification, chasing winners of the last quarter, etc.

Unfortunately not enough research is available in India about IPO investing, chasing quarterly returns, etc. There is no scheme-wise monthly collection figures available anywhere. However when the markets are down (obviously the best time to put your money to work) NFOs will not work…and vice-versa. This hurts. Here is a good research report from Morningstar -obviously with American Data – but principles remain the same….Read on….

How investors lost money: evidence from mutual fund flows