October 1, 2025
Mutual Fund investors
Mutual Funds have given lesser returns than the humble PPF and Fixed Deposits even over a long period of 5 years while the managers have thrived at the cost of the poor investors. It appears the time has come for investors to bid adieu to mutual funds and invest directly in Index ETFs
Mutual Funds have given lesser returns than the humble PPF and Fixed Deposits even over a long period of 5 years while the managers have thrived at the cost of the poor investors. It appears the time has come for investors to bid adieu to mutual funds and invest directly in Index ETFs




Kya Mutual Funds sahi hain?

Madan Kaka, an intellectual on Dalal Street, was an ardent believer in mutual funds.

Mutual Funds sahi hain boss. Isme solid paisa banta hain,” he used to tell youngsters and novices.

However, he is now sporting a glum face.

This is because the ET has made the explosive revelation that investments in equity schemes in the past five years have fetched lesser average returns than fixed deposits of the best banks or the popular Public Provident Fund (PPF).

According to the study, the average SIP returns from the large-cap, multi-cap, mid-cap and small-cap categories for three and five years are below 5%.

In contrast, SBI’s fixed deposit offers a higher rate of 5.3% per year.


(Image credit: ET)

Anup Bhaiya, an expert, eloquently voiced the disappointment of the hapless investors.

Investors who came into equities post demonetisation and have completed three years of investment are losing patience due to poor returns. They had come in on the back of investors making a 15-17% from their SIPs in the past three years, with stellar performance from mid- and small-caps,” he said.

Other noted experts also expressed their disappointment at the sorry state of affairs.

Mutual fund सही हे क्या यह कहना क्या सही हे ?????,” they asked in a poignant manner.

However, some did come out in support of mutual funds.





Mutual Fund managers get more salary than Mukesh Ambani & corporate bosses?

It is unbelievable but true that some mutual fund managers are taking home more salary than their corporate counterparts.

While Mukesh Ambani and N. Chandrasekaran (of TCS) had to stay content with annual salaries of Rs. 15 crore and Rs. 21 crore respectively, mutual fund managers received more by way of salaries and ESOPs.

Vinit Sambre Salary
(Image Credit: ET)


(Image Credit: Live Mint)

Even managers of small mutual funds are raking in mega salaries.

Losses are also no bar for high salaries.

Naturally, this has also aroused the ire of investors.

This state of affairs had alarmed SEBI and it wanted to put a leash on the runaway salaries though nothing was in fact done.





Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger have warned us against being ripped off by fund managers

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have already sounded the red alert that investors will get ripped off by (Hedge) Fund managers.

There’s been far, far, far more money made by people in Wall Street through salesmanship abilities than through investment abilities” the Oracle of Omaha said with his characteristic bluntness.

The compensation charged by hedge fund managers is unbelievable to me” he added.

Warren Buffett took a dig at the concept of hiring consultants for advice on where to invest.

No consultant in the world is going to tell you ‘Just buy an S&P index fund and sit for the next 50 years. You don’t get to be a consultant that way, and you certainly don’t get an annual fee that way” he said.

He produced evidence that showed that hedge funds have severely underperformed the S&P Index. While the basket of hedge funds had returned 21.9% for the eight years through 2015, the S&P Index had given a mind-boggling return of 65.7%.

Are investors wisening up and bolting from mutual funds?

According to the latest data from AMFI, inflows into equity funds in June 2020 has plunged to a multi-year low of Rs. 225 crore, which is a steep fall of 96% on a month-to-month basis (Rs. 5,246 crore in May).

However, Nithin Kamath, the visionary founder of Zerodha, rubbished the fear that investors are bolting from mutual funds.

He opined that it is a case of “how HNI’s, institutions are allocating” funds.





Why not invest directly in ETFs?

Warren Buffett candidly admitted that even he cannot outperform Index Funds.

This is endorsed by Ramesh Damani.

Taking a cue from this, the optimum solution is for investors to buy Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) directly from the stock exchanges.

These are extremely low cost and can be bought at zero-brokerage from discount brokers like Zerodha, Upstox etc.

There are a wide array of ETFs available which invest in Indices such as the Nifty, Junior Nifty, Bank Nifty etc.

The Nifty Junior has these fail-safe and powerhouse stocks in it, diversified across sectors.

Top 10 stocks in the Nifty Junior Index
Stock Sector
SBI Life Insurance Company   Financial
HDFC Life Insurance Financial
Godrej Consumer Products FMCG
Dabur India FMCG
Shree Cement Construction
Bandhan Bank Financial
Divi’s Laboratories Healthcare
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Financial
HPCL Energy
Petronet LNG Energy
Pidilite Industries Chemicals

The performance of the indices is quite attractive over the years.

Investors desiring exposure to foreign stocks can consider ETFs such as the MOSt shares Nasdaq-100 ETF.

This will give us exposure to the much fancied FANG stocks such as Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, Microsoft etc.










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