Investment in Equity is always considered to be complex. The reason being, lack of knowledge and/or fear of loosing hard earned money due to market volatality.

You really need to have time, knowledge and money to invest and make profits in Stock markets.

Though we agree with the above statement, we feel you can make profits and become rich with good investment strategy.

After the SEBI banned mutual funds from charging entry load which is used by MFs to pay commissions to their distributors/agents, investing in Mutual Funds became more attractive.

So, how do we pick the mutual funds from the lot?

It’s simple, just analyze the returns given by various fund categories over the past say 5 years.

History says that FMCG(Magnum FMCG fund), Banking(Reliance Banking fund) and Pharma(Reliance Pharma) sectors were always on top. (Data as on July 2010)

Often, top analysts advice investors to buy equity diversified fund but the above mentioned categories always topped and gave much more returns than equity diversified funds.

We believe it’s better to diversify by putting our money equally in the above sectors we mentioned.

It’s also relatively safe to invest in good equity diversified mutual funds such as HDFC Equity, HDFC Top 200, Reliance Growth through Systematic Investment Plan (SIP).

These funds have been in market from very long and has shown consistent performance. There may be funds which are doing very good currently but can you trust them for long term investment such as for retirement?

Disclaimer: Please consult a investment expert before making any decisions as they suggest you based on your risk appetite, tenure you wanted to stay invested etc.

Market has been turbulent these days and it’s expected to be like this till we hear bad news from everywhere and the damage is complete. Though our Indian economy is doing well, our investors are loosing money due to Global fears. Once the damage is done, our stock market will rise steeply. Do you remember, how the Sensex recovered from the lows of 8000 index?

Recover will be steep if the fall is steep.  Our advice is, keep investing regularly into good mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) via SIP route.

Sensex being at 15000, we know that we went to a low of 7800 from a high of 21000. We recovered smartly in a short span.

We realized by now that, anything which grows suddenly can come down suddenly. However, it would not be right to say that we are again growing suddenly. Instead, we can say that we are ‘recovering’ smartly.

Let us understand, how this market grows. Though it’s difficult to explain precisely, we will give it a try.

Market is driven by investors who are investing in companies that contributes to an index like Sensex. These investors does great research on various parameters like past performance, projected performance etc. And this performance is linked to customers/consumers of that company’s product/services. So if the consumer confidence index (CSI) is good then market tends to grow better.

These consumers will consume the products or services only if they have enough money to spend. So, as long as he have a job and handsome salary and most importantly if there are products or services that he/she is interested in, then he/she spends.

Now consider a case where a product is priced very expensive. Let’s take an example. Any guess what example we are going to take? Real Estate..!!

When real estate prices increase due to greed of Builders or due to increase in demand etc, at one stage, prices will reach such a level that most of the investors will feel it’s very expensive so these consumers will stop investing in real estate. And the problem starts here.

Though he is earning handsome salary, he reduces spending thus affecting all dependents of Real Estate market. We also need to understand that sectors are depend on each other. To make our example simple, let us also consider that such consumers reduces spending on few other sectors. This results in decrease in demand and thus all the affected companies will have to cut costs by cutting salaries or cutting jobs which in turn will only worsen the situation as consumers have less money to spend. This will turn to a deadlock where one is expecting other to act first.

This is the time when investors will even stop investing in equity markets and will start investing in Gold or prefers to put their cash in Debt instruments like Fixed Deposits. This is the how market goes down. And when the deadlock that we discussed starts getting relaxed then slowly the market will recover and this is the state that we are currently in.

When people saw market at 8000/9000 levels, they though it may further go down to even 6000 levels but they lately realized that it was only going up. So what should they understand from the market? Never time the market.

If we are somewhere near market lows, invest more and if we are at market high, invest less. And if we are some where in middle, then invest consistently some amount so that you would be averaging your investment cost and most likely you wouldn’t regret for not investing or for investing.

Good Luck..!

India’s largest software exporter TATA consultancy services reported it’s Q4 and Financial Year 2008-2009 results on Monday 20th April evening.

Financial Year revenues stood at record $6 billion i.e. Rs.27,813 crore up 23% compared to last year.

It has shown record operating profits at Rs.6,577 crore ($1.42 billion) up 29% compared to previous year.

Net Profit stood at Rs.5,256 crore up 5% compared to previous year.

Board of directors recommended 1:1 bonus share issue.

TCS said that the volumes have grown at 18% in a tough economic environment.
Earnings per share for 2008-2009 at Rs.53.63 from Rs.51.36  in 2007-2008.
Total divident for FY 09 at Rs.14 per share including Rs.5 as final dividend

It also highlighted that they have closed 28 large scale deals during 2008-2009 and have added 163 new customers.

With respect to employee management, TCS has added 48,595 professionals and the total employee strength stood at 1,43,761 professionals. Attrition rate stood at 11.4% LTM (including BPO). It seems they have given 24,885 offers to freshers (campus) for 2009-2010.

Mr.S. Ramadorai, CEO and MD said that in addition to total dividend of Rs.14 per share, the Board of Directors have recommended a 1:1 bonus share issue subject to approval by shareholders.

Source: www.tcs.com