Stable Lustre

Last fortnight, gold ETFs held their ground firmly even as stockmarkets and mutual funds took a hit

The Indian stockmarket corrected last fortnight on concerns that Greece-like problems could also affect other European economies. As a result, most equity funds in our coverage experienced a drag-down effect. Most of our core funds, however, held up well against this corrective trend. Among the equity large-cap (core) schemes under our coverage, HDFC Equity declined merely 3.53 per cent and Fidelity Equity fund saw a fall of 3.88 per cent as against the Sensex that slipped 6.54 per cent. In fact, all funds under our coverage managed to hold up their end in a bad market, declining less than 7 per cent. Even the mid- and small-cap funds under our coverage did relatively better than the BSE Midcap Index. On the debt side, there wasn’t too much action as yields were stable. But gold has been doing very well in the international and domestic markets. Likewise, gold ETFs, which track gold prices, have run up. Gold ETFs returned 3.20 per cent last fortnight.


OLM 50 is a list of our 50 mutual fund scheme recommendations, from among a thousand-plus schemes in the industry, that merit your attention. These schemes have made the cut after going through certain filters. OLM 50 is a guide for fresh investments only. Existing investors should keep reading our regular MF pages.

1. Less than five years old
2. NAV and returns for dividend plan only
3. Less than three years old
4. Gold ETFs give similar returns. No scheme has crossed three years
5. This is average one-year return for all schemes NR: Not rated Returns less than a year are absolute, else compounded annually Outlook Money’s rating for the three-year period as on March 2010-end NAV and Returns as on 25 May 2010

Source: Mutualfundsindia.com