Prajna Capital - An Investment Guide

    Peerless Funds Management, promoted by The Peerless General Finance India Co. Ltd, has initiated its journey in the mutual fund industry with the launch of two schemes: the Peerless Liquid Fund (open-ended liquid scheme) and Peerless Ultra Short Term Fund (open-ended debt scheme).  Peerless Liquid Fund is the low-risk option and is positioned to meet the needs of those investors who want to deploy their funds for a short period of time with the least amount of risk.   The risk return profile of Peerless Ultra Short Term Fund positions it in between a liquid fund and short term income fund. The portfolio strategy seeks to increase yield by having a marginally higher maturity and moderately higher credit risk as compared to a liquid fund while maintaining a balance between safety and liquidity.   Since the objective of the scheme is to generate reasonable returns with the least commensurate risk, the scheme would predominantly invest in money market instruments. As the turn...

A customer has few options when in a dispute with a financial institution. At the end, most of the time, it is the customer who suffers. Take an example of the most common dispute with credit card holders. Sometimes, the issuer levies a hefty fine for late payments even if the customer had paid on time. When the matter is not settled through correspondence, the customer refuses to pay. Banks report such customers as delinquent to the credit information bureau. This makes it difficult for them to get a loan. However, if the bank does not respond to your communication satisfactorily, one can approach the Banking Ombudsman. This is a quasi-judicial authority that functions under Indias Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006. It covers all scheduled banks, regional, rural and scheduled primary cooperative banks. When set up in 1995, it covered complaints regarding non-payment, delayed payment of cheques and drafts, banks not open during working hours and other such problems. With the revision in 2...

Four Companies Appoint KPMG To Study Possibility Of Venture   THE four public sector insurers — New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance, United India Insurance and National Insurance — have jointly appointed KPMG to weigh the pros and cons of jointly floating a Third Party Administrator ( TPA ). The idea was mooted to achieve better client servicing and building a sustainable and a competitive position in the health insurance segment. Currently, they have different TPAs.    Confirming the development, Oriental Insurance chairman M Ramadoss said: "KPMG has recently submitted its report. This will now be deliberated by the four insurers. They studied the positives and pitfalls of setting up a common TPA. The TPAs process claims on behalf of insurers and interact with hospitals, customers and the insurers."    The consultant took up the project in two parts. Phase I, spanning four months, included defining the business model of the new entity — the consultant laid out all ...

It started as a middle-of-the-road performer and began to take on competition in 2006 because of its sector selection. Last year, the scheme earned 120 per cent, 22 per cent over its category. Though the portfolio is churned frequently, it avoids concentration. Since 2005, no sector, the scheme invested in, has breached the 20 per cent mark, nor has a single stock crossed 6 per cent allocation. Therefore, the portfolio is sometimes packed with as many as 65 stocks. But, that could also be due to portfolio transition. When the scheme shifts between themes (like defensive or growth), it takes time to offload those stocks. In 2008-end, the fund was heavily into debt, which it offloaded completely in early 2009 and moved into cash. Just before the 2009 rally, its large-cap allocation was 25 per cent and then dropped to just one per cent in two months. This fund earns during rallies, but, does not stray drastically from the category average during downturns. The good part is that the invest...

A classical diversified equity scheme, Fidelity Equity does not promise the moon. Its pretty stable portfolio, however, will suit those seeking modest returns from their investments   FIDELITY Equity, a plain vanilla equity scheme, has emerged to be a reasonable fund so far since its launch in April '05. Its pretty stable portfolio may not have generated outstanding returns, but at the same time have not disappointed the investors either. With an asset size of about Rs 2,860 crore, Fidelity Equity also stands out to be the largest equity scheme in the Fidelity basket. PERFORMANCE: Fidelity Equity's performance is more or less aligned to the broader market indices like the Sensex and the Nifty and its benchmark index, the BSE 200. For instance in 2005, the year of its launch, the fund returned about 44% against 46% of the Sensex, 43% of the Nifty and 39% by the BSE 200. In 2006, the fund generated 44% returns, while the Sensex, the Nifty and the BSE 200 gave about 47%, 40% a...

  Country's largest lender SBI's pension corpus could be regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, opening a new area for the interim regulator. "We have given approval to SBI for management of its pension corpus by our fund managers and now they are talking with its trust," a PFRDA official said. Regulating the corpus of companies is a new area for the interim regulator. Till now, PFRDA-appointed fund managers, under the New Pension System (NPS), were handling only the corpus of individuals. Six PFRDA-appointed fund managers IDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mahindra, SBI, UTI Asset Management, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Reliance MF are handling the corpus under the NPS, which was thrown open to all citizens from May 1 this year. There are 22 contact and collection centres including SBI, ICICI Bank, the Postal Department, IDBI Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Axis Bank and Union Bank of India for all citizens' scheme.

The Union Bank of India (UBI) would set up an asset management company in partnership with a Belgian firm early next year, a top official of the bank said on Saturday. "The process of establishing the asset management company is at an advance stage. The new company will soon be incorporated. We are working out the business plan. It might happen early next year," bank executive director S C Kalia told reporters here. Kalia said UBI would launch the second phase of its customercentric navnirman programme to become one of the top three public sector banks in the country by 2012. He said the bank was targeting to achieve Rs 2,85,000 crore business by March 2010. As on September 30, 2009, the operating profit of the bank stood at Rs 810 crore and net profit was at Rs 505 crore. The bank has an ambitious plan to open 500 more branches across the country and enhance its global footprints, he said. At present, the bank has only one overseas branch in Hong Kong.