Prajna Capital - An Investment Guide

  INVESCO INDIA CONTRA FUND is a true-to-mandate contra fund in the form of a multi-cap offering with a value bias. The core of its portfolio is comprised of businesses which are in a turnaround phase or are trading below intrinsic value. It may further bet on companies which are counted among market leaders but are currently de-rated due to short term events. The fund mostly rotates between a few cyclical sectors but is poised to seize outside opportunities if value is apparent. The aim of the fund is to identify such bets early in the lifecycle and continue to hold when they are performing well. It maintains a compact portfolio which is cheaper than its benchmark, but also ensures that quality of is not compromised. With a proven track record of consistent outperformance, this fund is a worthy pick in this segment. Invest Rs 1,50,000 and Save Tax up to Rs 46,350 under Section 80C. Get Great Returns by Investing in Best Performing ELSS Funds. Save Tax Get Rich For further information...

What is the Nifty? It is a diversified 50 stock index accounting for 12 sectors of the economy. This is owned and managed by India Index Services and Products. (IISL). IISL is India's specialised company focused upon the index as a core product. How is the Nifty computed? According to the NSE's website, the index is computed using free float market capitalization weighted method. Under this, the level of the index reflects the total market value of all the stocks in the index relative to a particular base period. The period in this case is the close of prices on November 3, 1995, which marks the completion of one year of operations of NSE's Capital Market Segment. It must be noted that the method also considers constituent changes in the index and corporate actions such as stock splits, rights, etc without affecting the index value. What is the criteria for selection of stocks? Usually, it is based on the liquidity and other factors such as out of IPO period, replacement, ...

  Giving equity shares as a gift A gift is a transfer of movable or immovable property from one to another without consideration. Shares owned by a person can be gifted to another person (relative or otherwise) by following a certain procedure. Since gifting constitutes a transfer, and the transfer is for no consideration, such a transfer can be carried out using the "off market transfer" mechanism. Delivery instruction slip (DIS) Donor of shares has to fill out a DIS and submit the same to Depository Participant (DP). It should mention the DP ID, DP name, client ID of the donee and name, ISIN, and number of shares to be transferred.Execution date must be mentioned. This is an instruction to the DP. Receipt instruction The donee has to fill out a receipt instruction and submit it to his DP. The shares received from the donor's DP will be credited to donee's DP account once the receipt Instruction is received. Details such as DP ID, name, needs to be mentioned. Process...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   A few months ago, I got a frantic call from a friend who wanted me to "quickly" recommend a good health insurance plan, as she wanted to urgently furnish tax deduction proofs to her employer. She didn't have the time to research and buy insurance, plus she found the products way too complicated. That got me thinking. How can one quickly buy a health insurance plan on his own? Here's a quick guide for beginners. There are three ground rules —Don't buy in a hurry; don't buy based on a friend's or agent's recommendation; and lastly, don't buy based on price (health insurance plans can restrict the quality of healthcare through room eligibility and network of hospitals). Let's look at the steps: Step 1: The right amount The primary purpose of health insurance is to provide financial support. Over the past few years, inflation in healthcare sector has seen a double-digit growth and increased li...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   The Budget has unleashed havoc in the stock markets by reintroducing the tax on long-term capital gains from stock and equity funds. The Sensex tanked by nearly 840 points on Friday due to widespread selling pressure. Analysts say this will continue as investors try to book profits before the LTCG tax comes into effect in the new financial year starting 1 April.   The good news is that the tax has a very liberal threshold and will apply to long-term gain beyond Rs 1 lakh. Small investors with a ortfolio of `10-15 lakh will not have to worry. Even big investors can avoid the tax by keeping an eye on the calender.   Even so, the big fear is that the sharp decline in stock prices could make new investors jittery. Small investors have taken to mutual funds in a big way in recent years, adding over two crore new folios in the past two years (70 lakh in 2016 and 1.4 crore in 2017). Nearly Rs 1,50,000 crore has flown into the equity markets through mutual fun...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   Lending of equities for additional return is a good product. It is gaining traction with volumes picking up As a property investor, you have two options—keep the house locked or give it out on rent. The first option fetches you the capital gains as returns, while the second option earns you regular returns in the form of rent and capital gains. For stock investments too, you can either hold on to your shares and wait for them to appreciate in value or lend your securities through the security lending and borrowing (SLB) scheme to earn money in the interim. Though a very good product, the SLB scheme is yet to attract large scale interest. SLB holds huge potential for interested investors. It is yet to pick up because of lack of awareness. We try to educate our clients about it on a regular basis The efforts are showing. Volume in the SLB segment has started picking up and in the last five years, transactions have moved from around ₹100 crore to ₹2,000 ...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   Experts now unanimously believe that stock markets could remain range-bound this year. There is an apparent lack of enthusiasm among foreign institutional investors and uncertainty about the earnings growth picking up, which could keep the markets in a narrow trading range. Given the uncertainty in the markets going ahead, it makes sense for investors to choose mutual fund schemes with high exposure to large-sized companies whose earnings growth may not be as volatile as their mid- and small-cap peers. One such scheme with a proven track record is Aditya Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity. The fund has distinguished itself from its peers with its consistent performance. Managed by Mahesh Patil, the scheme has not only performed better in bull cycles but has also been able to contain a decline in portfolio returns in bear markets. Patil keeps a few things in mind before picking up stocks: reasonable price, distinguished competitive edge of a company in its...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   Young Indians who finish their education and start out in their careers hardly think about what to do with their income, other than repaying the education loan they may have taken for higher education. This has given rise to a phenomenon of young professionals who have a high disposable income that gets disposed off by the end of the first half of the month. This can result in a lot of pain in latter stages of life when one is trying to catch up with investment opportunities that otherwise have been lost. Here are some time-tested thumb rules that will help you plan your personal finances in a more comprehensive manner. Remember these are thumb rules and you can tweak them to meet your requirements, but if you do not have a plan in place this is the place you should start. Income - Savings = Expenses The first rule in personal finance is that you have to invest or save money before you decide on how much you can spend. A number of youngsters do not hav...

Best SIP Funds to Invest Online   Various asset classes move in different directions over a period of time. As a result, asset allocation of an individual changes over time. Therefore, it is necessary to rebalance the portfolio from time to time. What is portfolio rebalancing? As markets move up or down, your asset allocation changes. Your equity allocation could go up if markets rally for a long time, or it could go down when markets correct, thereby changing your asset allocation. Therefore, you need to rebalance it to bring it back in line with the original. Portfolio rebalancing is the process of bringing a portfolio back to its original asset allocation. While making an asset allocation, the target proportion of debt and equity is determined based on your time frame and risk profile. Over time, if one asset class moves more than another, the allocation between them may diverge from the original planned allocation. This will affect the portfolio's returns and the risk you are t...