Religare Fund has announced that Religare Infrastructure Fund which is a close ended scheme will be converted to an open ended scheme. The change will be effective from 23rd November, 2010. Investors who do not agree with the conversion may redeem or switch their units between the periods of 22nd October, 2010 to 22nd November, 20100 without paying any exit load. After the conversion to open ended scheme the fund will charge 1 per cent exit load if units are redeemed within 1 year from the date of allotment. The scheme is benchmarked against CNX 500 and is managed by Mr. Pardeep Kumar.
What are derivatives? Derivatives are financial instruments, which as the name suggests, derive their value from another asset — called the underlying. What are the typical underlying assets? Any asset, whose price is dynamic, probably has a derivative contract today. The most popular ones being stocks, indices, precious metals, commodities, agro products, currencies, etc. Why were they invented? In an increasingly dynamic world, prices of virtually all assets keep changing, thereby exposing participants to price risks. Hence, derivatives were invented to negate these price fluctuations. For example, a wheat farmer expects to sell his crop at the current price of Rs 10/kg and make profits of Rs 2/kg. But, by the time his crop is ready, the price of wheat may have gone down to Rs 5/kg, making him sell his crop at a loss of Rs 3/kg. In order to avoid this, he may enter into a forward contract, agreeing to sell wheat at Rs 10/ kg, right at the outset. So, even if the price of wheat falls ...
