Risk diversification
The biggest advantage of investing in mutual funds versus stocks is risk diversification.Every stock is subject to three types of risk: company risk, sector risk and market risk.Company risk and sector risk are unsystematic risks, while market risk is known as systematic risk.
What is the essential difference between unsystematic and systematic risk?
The stock price of a company may fall if the company's financial performance is poor, even if the market rises.On the other hand, even if the company performs well, the stock price may still fall, if the market falls. Mutual funds help investors diversify unsystematic risks by investing in a diversified portfolio of stocks across different sectors
Hence, mutual fund risk is much lower than individual stocks.
Smaller capital outlay
Investors require a large capital outlay to build a diversified portfolio of stocks
On the other hand, since mutual funds work on the basis of pooling of money, mutual fund investors can have the beneficial ownership of a diversified portfolio of stocks with a much smaller capital outlay.
Investors can buy units of a diversified equity fund with an investment as low as Rs 5,000 only (or even lower for some schemes).
Investment expertise
Investing in stock market requires a lot of experience and expertise.
In our view understanding the risk return trade-offs in stock market investments is the most important part of equity investing
Many retail investors have lost money in share trading because they make poor risk return trade-offs
Mutual funds are managed by professional fund managers who have sufficient expertise and experience in picking the right stocks to get the best risk adjusted returns.
Economies of scale in transaction costs
Since mutual funds buy and sell securities in large volumes, transaction costs on a per unit basis is much lower than what retail investors may incur if they buy or sell shares through stock brokers
Variety of products
Mutual funds offer investors a variety of products to suit their risk profiles and investment objectives
Apart from equity funds, there are also balanced funds, monthly income plans, income funds and liquid funds to suit different investment requirements
Variety of modes of investments
Mutual funds also offer investors flexibility in terms of modes of investment and withdrawal.
Investors can opt for different investment modes like lump sum (or one time), systematic investment plans, systematic transfer plans (from other mutual fund schemes), systematic withdrawal plans, switches from one scheme to another etc. You can invest in growth option of mutual funds if you want to take advantage of compounded returns over a long investment period. You can invest in dividend option if you want regular income from your investment.
No other investment product offers such wide array of investment modes.
Disciplined investing
Share prices are highly volatile and can induce the investor to buy or sell in short time periods due to fear or greed. Frequent trading often leads the investor to incur losses. Mutual funds encourage investors to invest over a long time horizon, which is essential to creating wealth. Furthermore, systematic investment plans encourage investors to invest in a disciplined manner to meet their long term financial objectives
Many investors fail to build a substantial investment corpus because they are not able to invest in a disciplined way. Savings not invested regularly often gets spent on discretionary lifestyle related expenses
Systematic investment plans (SIPs) in mutual funds help investors to maintain a disciplined approach to savings and investment
SIPs also help investors take emotions out of the investment process. Very often investors get very enthusiastic in bull market conditions, but get nervous in bear markets.
It is an established fact that investments made in bear markets help investors get high returns in the long term.
By investing through SIPs in a mechanical way, investors can stay disciplined, which is critical to achieving their financial objectives