A Comprehensive Analysis On Mutual Funds

The Indian mutual fund industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian capital and financial markets. The mutual fund industry in India has seen dramatic improvements in quality as well as quantity of product and service offerings in recent years. So, the mutual fund industry plays a vital role in the development of the economy. Its buoyant growth leads to lower intermediation costs, more efficient financial markets, and increased vibrancy of the capital markets. But the lack of awareness and understanding on mutual funds among the people has been the main obstacle to achieving growth in this sector.

In this background, this book is quite helpful for those who want to transact in mutual funds, as many of the established banks in the nations do not have the professional people to advise investors about funds. As the transaction cost in dealing with large score of corporate money is relatively low, the Indian fund industry is less perturbed about the lack of retail interest. The book points out as to how the big companies are growing at the expense of the distributors, fund companies and retail investors. The distributors are being forced to pass on more commissions, while the fund companies are being compelled to offer funds with wafer thin margins, and ultimately the retail investors lose out.

This book is an endeavour to get the factors which influence the observation of investors towards mutual funds. This book is spread over 286 pages and contains five chapters. The first chapter deals with the global and Indian scenario of mutual fund industry and it highlights the major obstacles which mutual funds are facing in India. It includes the prominent players in the industry and some regulations governing their functioning. The second chapter deals with review of literature. In this chapter, the researches which have already been conducted on perception of investors and their behaviour related to mutual fund investment have been mentioned.

The third chapter deals with the research methodology adopted for the study. This chapter mentions the research problem, the objectives of the study, the hypotheses formulated for the study, and the sample of the study. The next chapter is divided in five sections. The first section presents the factors affecting the perception of investors towards mutual funds. The second section deals with variations in interaction between schemes. The third section includes variation among personal variables and its effect on identified factors. The forth section consist of variations within variables and its effect on overall and state-wise factors. And the last section consists of perception of investors by weighted average score.

The fifth chapter provides the concluding observations which present the summary of the study, the implications of the study and scope for further research. This book covers different factors which directly or indirectly affect the perception of investors towards mutual funds. In a nutshell, the book provides useful information relating to the investors perception so that the planners and policy-makers may review the regulatory framework of mutual funds in India.

By Ashok Kumar