Prajna Capital - An Investment Guide

  Tight supply, demand from China & India, purchase by central banks are some of the reasons why gold prices will rise    Gold prices have been on a roll over the past few years. The precious metal has given a return of about 160% in the past five years. That is, if you had invested . 100 in gold back then, it would be worth around . 260 today. Now, compare that to the investment made in the stock market during the same period. The 50-share NSE Nifty Index, which is a broad representation of the Indian stock market, has grown by around 83%, which means that . 100 invested in the stock market five years ago would have grown to . 183 by now. The point is: return from gold has been almost double than from stocks. But that, as they say, is the past. What about the future? Will gold continue to perform as well as it has in the past? The answer is most likely yes. Gold prices will continue to rise even further in the days to come. Here are some reasons why. CENTRAL BANKS BUYING GOLD

Type: Open-Ended Equity Diversified Fund Manager: Mr. Sanjay Sinha. Inception Date: September 30, 1994   SBI Magnum Global Fund 94 has always been in the lime light due to its phenomenal performance across various time frames. It has been the best performing scheme within the fund house product bouquet of equity schemes. The scheme aims to provide the investors an opportunity to earn, in accordance with their requirement, through capital gains or through regular dividends, returns that would be higher than the returns offered by comparable investment avenues through investment in Indian equities, PCDs & FCDs for selected industries.   The scheme has been in existence since September 1994 and its fund size has grown at a CAGR of 154% in the last one year period, which shows that the scheme is still popular among the Indian investors. The scheme is currently being managed by Mr. Sanjay Sinha, which was previously managed by Mr. Sandeep Sabharwal. Mr. Sanjay Sinha also manages o

    GOVERNMENT-RUN Punjab National Bank ( PNB ) will pick up 30 per cent stake in MetLife Insurance Company for an undisclosed sum. PNB had been scouting for a partner for a long time for exposure in the insurance sector. Following close of the transaction, the insurance company will re-brand itself as PNB MetLife to leverage strengths of the two brands in the Indian market. PNB has also agreed to enter into 10-year distribution tie-up with MetLife India. At present, PNB is one of the bancassurance partners of Life Insurance Corporation of India ( LIC ). When the MetLife deal is finalised, PNB will have to break its distribution tie with LIC to fall in line with regulatory norms. PNB had short-listed 10 companies in March 2011 and narrowed the list to three firms, Aviva Life, MetLife and Bharti Axa Life. KR Kamath, CMD of PNB, said, "We have considered offers made by various companies and selected MetLife as our partner. With 60 per cent branches in rural and semi­urban

Type: Equity Diversified Fund Manager: Paras Adenwalla Launch Date: 09-Dec-2005 ING Vysya L.I.O.N (large cap, intermediate cap, opportunities, new offer) Fund seeks to provide medium to long term capital appreciation by investing in stocks across the entire market capitalisation range. ING Vysya L.I.O.N fund predominantly moves across various market caps to optimize returns and currently 53% of the total corpus is into large cap stocks. The investment mandate of the scheme states that it will invest 75-10 per cent of its assets in equities and out of which at least 20% will be invested in large cap stocks, while 0-70% will be invested in midcap scrips, and 0-40% will be in small caps. Existing mutual fund schemes in the Indian markets, which have a flexi-cap investment strategy, have had a mixed result in the last one year in terms of performance. Some of the comparable schemes like SBI Magnum Multicap and Franklin India Flexi Cap have generated good returns, but the rest of the c

Type: Debt Income Fund Manger: Navneet Munot Launch Date: 3rd March, 1997 The current inflation rate in the Indian economy clearly signals to the over heated conditions of the markets, with the inflation touching a two year high of 6.12% in the last month, dropping back and again rising to a high of 6.11%, the market is jittery about the next policy of the Central Bank. The Reserve Bank of India also looks worried about the inflation and in a move to curb the excess liquidity in the markets; it raised the repo rate by 25 bps in its last third quarter Monetary Policy review last month, along with other measures and by this move the central bank has tried to make the money costlier in order to cut down of the excess money supply in the market. In these times when the inflation is on a high, and there is increased interest arte volatility, investors are parking their money in the shorter –term debt schemes to earn a return over a short period of time. However certain debt products

Type: Open – Ended Debt – MIP Fund Manager: Mr. Prashant Jain (Equity), Mr Shabbir Kapasi (Debt) Inception Date: Decemebr 26, 2003 Unlike the conventional monthly income plans in the markets HDFC MIP - LTP is a balance of debt and equity instruments. It invests a minimum of 75% in debt instrument and up to 25% in equities ensuring the scheme has the stability of debt as well as the extra performance potential of equities. The equity exposure gives HDFC MIP - LTP the potential to deliver higher returns over a period of time, in comparison to pure debt scheme. The scheme has benchmarked it self against CRISIL MIP Blended Index. The primary objective of the scheme is to generate regular returns through investment primarily in debt and money market instruments and to generate long term capital appreciation by investing a portion of the scheme's asset in equity and equity related securities. As on December 06 the fund has invested 24.86% of its asset in equity, 42.07% in debt and 33.

  Systematic planning and a disciplined life have proven to be the formula for success. How can it be different with your money?    For many young professionals, it is never an easy task to deal with money. While many find it difficult to generate surplus, those who have the luxury of extra earnings are too worried about its safety. In fact, it is only a small percentage that is willing to take the risk element and experiment to build a corpus.    Now, why should a young professional turn young investor when he has decades ahead of him to make money?    The answer is simple. What is begun early always ends up good. Whether it is during student life or professional life, those who plan their days and years well are likely to end up on the winning side. It is not very different with money. To begin with, young professionals who begin taking their incomes and expenses seriously are likely to end up with a bigger corpus than those who take up the task a few years later. Even a savin