Market sheds 425 points in two consecutive days

As per the predictions the market is going through corrections...
From the NDTV reporting enclave : The Sensex shed 425 points in two consecutive trading sessions!The markets ended weak on Thursday with the benchmark index closing at 11,237 levels. It slipped to a low of 11,008 levels in intra-day trade.In the broader markets, the Nifty, shed a per cent or 34 points to close at 3345 levels.

Check out http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusiness.asp?slug=Sensex+slips+118+points&id=30729

BSE Trading Holidays list 2006

The Exchange will observe the following Trading Holidays during theCalendar year January to December, 2006

11th January, 2006 - Wednesday : Bakri-Id
26th January, 2006 - Thursday : Republic Day
9th February, 2006 - Thursday :Moharum
15th March, 2006 - Wednesday : Holi (2 nd day)
6th April, 2006 - Thursday : Ram Navami
11th April, 2006 - Tuesday : Mahavir Jayanti / Id-E-Milad
14th April, 2006 - Friday : Ambedkar Jayanti / Good Friday
1th May, 2006 - Monday : Maharashtra Day
15th August, 2006 - Tuesday : Independence Day
2 nd October, 2006 - Monday : Mahatma Gandhi Jayanti / Dasera
24th October, 2006 - Tuesday : Diwali (Bhaubeej)
25th October, 2006 - Wednesday : Ramzan Id
25th December, 2006- Monday : Christmas
Muhurat Trading will be held on Saturday, 21st October 2006 (Diwali Amavasya – Laxmi Puja)

Reference Link : http://www.bseindia.com/about/listholi.asp

Disclaimer : The blogger is not responsible for any change in the above list.

NSE Trading Holidays list 2006

List of NSE Holidays

The following are the trading holidays for the calendar year 2006:

Date Day Description
11-Jan-2006 - Wednesday : Bakri Id
26-Jan-2006 - Thursday : Republic Day
09-Feb-2006 - Thursday : Moharram
15-Mar-2006 - Wednesday : Holi
06-Apr-2006 - Thursday : Ram Navami
11-Apr-2006 - Tuesday : Mahavir Jayanti/ Id-E-Milad
14-Apr-2006 - Friday : Ambedkar Jayanti/ Good Friday
01-May-2006 - Monday : Maharashtra Day
15-Aug-2006 - Tuesday : Independence Day
02-Oct-2006 - Monday : Gandhi Jayanti/ Dasara
21-Oct-2006 - Saturday : Laxmi Puja *
24-Oct-2006 - Tuesday : Bhaubeej
25-Oct-2006 - Wednesday : Ramzan Id
25-Dec-2006 - Monday : Christmas
* Muhurat trading will be conducted. Timings of Muhurat Trading shall be notified subsequently

Reference Link : http://www.nseindia.com/content/equities/eq_holidays.htm

Disclaimer : The blogger is not responsible for any change in the above list.

Mutual Funds | Buy | Ring Out The New

New fund offers (NFOs) are good for mutual fund companies and distributors, but not necessarily for you. So, check out the pros and cons of putting your money in NFOs, advises Muthukumar K

YOU may change the name but can never take the misplaced euphoria that surrounds IPOs. NFOs (New Fund Offering), the erstwhile mutual fund IPOs, have made record collections in the last one year. For the first quarter ended March ’06, the NFO collections were more than even FII investments. As per available data, close to Rs 19,000 crore of collections have already been made with many more new funds in the pipeline.

Clearly, this is reaching alarming proportions. There is also evidence to suggest that money is being churned. People are selling from existing schemes and investing in new ones. If this is happening, this is foolhardy behaviour by investors. The broker is taking you for a ride.

While the going is certainly good for the MF industry, is it the right investment strategy for retail investors? ET Big Bucks finds that there is compelling logic to suggest that it doesn’t make sense to put money in NFOs. If you are keen on investing in MFs, there are enough existing schemes you can look at. There are multiple reasons which suggest avoid NFOs: high cost, vague themes, no track record, and potentially unwieldy fund sizes. Also, the most basic reason is – a Rs 10 entry price is no advantage. Buying into an NFO at Rs 10 is no different from buying an existing scheme at a higher NAV of say Rs 80. The only reason to buy an NFO would be that it has a new investment theme that you like or the expenses are lower. Both reasons don’t apply anymore.

Expenses are actually a deterrent. Earlier, NFOs used to have no entry load. Now, this has changed. An NFO has about the same entry load as an existing fund. Also, higher initial expenses are charged to the scheme by MF houses. Earlier, these expenses used to be partially borne by the AMC. Now, these are fully transferred to the scheme, or in other words, to the investors. So, in effect, you as an investor, are paying for marketing the fund to yourself! These costs are amortised over five years. So, if you are buying into an old scheme, not only you have a track record to look at, the costs are also lower.

Mutual fund experts believe some thematic funds that are being launched are vague in their investment horizon and, therefore, immensely avoidable. Rural theme, lifestyle theme, for instance, could include many sectors.

Some of themes are so vague that just about any stock can fit into it. So why not stick with your plain old growth fund like say HDFC Growth Fund or Franklin Blue Chip or Reliance Growth Fund. Cement, air conditioners, paints, tea, detergents are among the 23 sectors which fit the rural theme. Even a plain-vanilla diversified equity scheme could play these themes at various points and benefit from it.

Besides, often funds don’t even strictly adhere to the themes they talk about. For example, if the largest holding in a small and medium enterprises fund is say BHEL, then you are not exactly getting what you are paying for.

Many new schemes are collecting huge amounts of money, mostly exceeding Rs 1,000 crore. So, these funds have to deploy substantial money in a short period. This can pose a problem to some extent. Many new schemes are already bigger then well-performing older schemes. While there is no consensus whether large size can be a deterrent, a mid-size fund could be possibly nimbler. Also, imagine a situation where a fund manager has only five good ideas in the month of April ’06 (given how expensive the market is now). Obviously, five ideas will have far a greater impact on a Rs 500 crore fund than say a Rs 3,000 crore fund. If the first guy allocates Rs 100 crore to each idea, the other guy has to allocate Rs 600 crore. What if there is not enough liquidity to allow this?

In other words, larger the fund, the more ideas you need. Are there enough ideas with the market at level it is?

To sum it up, investing is fairly simple and it ends with mixing and matching products of different asset classes. For any investor, balanced, equity and debt funds would suffice her/his asset allocation. With a longer history of fund performance, there is greater scope to analyse the existing schemes on risk-reward measures.

Source : Economic Times(Bangalore)-Big Bucks: dated April 03, 2006 (Request author for link)