HDFC Growth - Continue
Reliance Growth - Continue
Tata Infra - Stop
Kotak Opportunities - Continue

Fidelity Tax Advantage - almost 2 year old, 4-6% better than it`s category
Reliance Tax Saver - More or less with it`s category for last 3 years, but gone down less in last 3 months
Templeton India Equity Income - Lagging with it`s category, should switch...

Your strategy is good and that won`t increase your funds, if you decide to change funds for SIP after every year, depending on their performance. You can start SIP in new funds, you can switch through STP from your old funds to these new funds. That way, number of funds will almost remain same.
Regarding Lump-Sum investment, it can`t be said, that you should go for it even now, because markets can`t be timed. Although, some experts are saying that market is close to bottom, but this thing they have been saying since market started downfall in January-2008. They said the same thing, when market touched 17K, 16K, 15K and so on. Every time they said that market have reached the bottom, market proved them wrong. Having said that, market can`t go too much down from here.
In fact, you can start weekly SIP in selected funds to take full advantage of current market....

Well said.
Even my portfolio is down 42%, despite of regulat investment / SIPs.
One need not to worry. Once the market changes it`s way, it will give the expected returns. Most importantly, there is nothing wrong with Indian economy. All this is happening mostly due to Credit Crunch and that too mostly in US. There are lot of differences in ways of functioning of banks in US and India. Out banks are fundamentlly strong and are closely watched by Reserve Bank.
One need to look this opportunity to invest more if he can, in best equities / MF, and be relaxed. Even if market goes down from here, one need not to worry. Equities are for long term, and by long term, I mean to say horizon of 5-10 years.

For sure, market will bounce back and will be on right track.
...

Article from VR:

Inflation is supposed to be a big killer. Governments and economists are scared of it, though not, I think, businessmen. But is it really as deadly as it is supposed to be?

Before the last world war, we had no inflation worth the name. In fact, the world, including India, was passing through one of the worst depressions in memory. I was a student in the 1930`s and lived, or managed to live, on twenty to thirty rupees a month away from the family. Food, like everything else, was plentiful and cheap. A thali in a city like Bombay cost 20 paise (three annas) and often less. For an anna (one sixteenth of rupee) the ubiquitous tram took you from one corner of Bombay to another, giving you a ringride seat to the city`s glories. We students paid only half an anna, the price of a cup of tea in an Irani restaurant.

But people were cheap too. A clerk was lucky to get Rs 25 a month and a postman made Rs 20. Durga Khote`s husband was a senior clerk in Bombay municipality on a lordly salary of Rs 125 a month. A peon in the collector`s office took home ten rupees at the end of a month, on which he raised his whole family. Cooks were available for Rs 5 a month, and teachers in primary schools for ten. Our own village teacher was paid just three rupees plus twenty coconuts a month.

Prices shot up — the term inflation was heard for the first time — and so did wages and salaries. A friend of mine, just passed out of college, a rare thing those days, got a chemist`s job in an ammunition factory, and he was so ecstatic he threw us a party; his salary was 75 rupees a month!

By the end of the war, prices doubled but they were still under control. We now paid a full anna for a cup of tea, but since I shared it with a friend, it still cost me half an anna. We still talked in terms of annas, not rupees, and a ten-rupee note was a rarity. It was after the war ended and especially after independence that things began to change rapidly.

Salaries went up, and so did prices. Since then, believe it or not, we have had inflation of ten to twelve percent a year on an average, year after year, for the last sixty years, beginning with 1950. This means that prices have doubled every six or seven years. They have shot up 200 to 300 times, that is, 20,000 to 30,000 percent, since the end of the war. This is inflation with a vengeance, but our economists and our planners have forgotten it.

By the textbook laws of inflation, we should have been paupers by now, living in caves and reduced to eating leaves and roots. Instead, we seem to have been blessed, not ruined by inflation, no matter how you look at it. People who used to live in chawls, now live in pucca two bedroom apartments. Many have air-conditioned bedrooms. Those who used to travel by bus now have Marutis. Motor cars are much more expensive than they used to be so are houses but there are still not enough of them.

It looks as if the more expensive things become, the more people want to buy them. I once stayed at the Taj in Bombay for which I paid 32 rupees a day, including all meals. Now a room at the Taj costs Rs 20,000 a day, and you have to book weeks in advance. Even boys and girls just out of college make a minimum of Rs 50,000 a month, which is twice the salary of the viceroy before the war! If this is inflation, let us have more of it. If inflation goes with growth, growth too goes with inflation....

I was thinking for words, suited to wish Ashal in Best way, but I was unable to find words, which match to wish Ashal, since he is such a great help to one and all. His contribution to this message board can`t be measured and can`t be described in words.

It`s great that MC recognised him and selected Boarder of the Day.

Many, many congrats to you Ashal.
I wish Best to you in all aspects of life....

Dear radhika_nandlal,
Investment and Insurance are two completely different things.
One should not consider insurance policies as investment. Rather, one should go for top rated mutual funds, if looking for investment (for retirement, child`s marriage and/or education) etc....

Article in VR by Dhirendra Kumar:-

Finally, Warren Buffett is scared. Perhaps you should be too. Fifteen months after start of the global credit crisis (which we innocently used to call the US sub-prime crisis in the olden days), the legendary investor has declared that he has never seen so much economic fear in his life. He has likened the crisis to an economic Pearl Harbour and said that if things don`t improve, he`ll "have to go back to delivering newspapers."

Just last week I`d mentioned how the crisis had left Buffett as a sort of a last man standing on Wall Street and how the crisis had proven the wisdom of what he used to say about financial derivatives and the kind of behaviour they presented. `Financial weapons of mass destruction,` was his description. Interestingly, while Buffett`s words sound more alarming, his actions have indicated hope. He has put down a large amount of cash (about eight billion dollars) to buy major stakes in Goldman Sachs and General Electric.

During this past few weeks, the scale of this crisis has become quite clear. As I`d written two weeks ago, the world has seen easy credit being available for many years, and now the cycle is threatening to reverse itself. Till a few days ago there was a naïve hope that the problem was caused by major global institutions not trusting the quality of assets on each others books. All that was needed was someone like the US government to underwrite the bad assets on these institutions` books and all would be fine.

These simple hopes have now disappeared. It is clear that the great unwinding is upon us. In many ways, what follows will just reset a balance that has been disturbed by the surfeit of money that the world`s economy has seen for about five or six years. The easy and cheap money has been used in all sorts of ways from setting up new factories and infrastructure to buying over-priced stocks and real estate. A cycle of asset price inflation came into being in which the only logic for prices to go up further was that they were going up and there was cheap money available to drive them up. That money is gone now.

What exactly do I mean by `the great unwinding`? Take the example of share prices in India. Almost all the foreign funds that have been driving up the markets are heavily leveraged. Someone has 10 million dollars and they borrow 10 or 20 times on that basis and then bring in the hundred or two hundred million dollars to invest. This could be happening in the hands of the actual fund that invests on Dalal Street or in the hands of that funds` investor but that doesn`t matter now. The 10 or 20 times will now be brought down to a much lower ratio. In a different way, the story of the Indian real estate market is also the same. Unfortunately, the story is also the same on many people`s credit card statements. Debt fuelled a buying binge, and now debt is suddenly a four-letter word.

But that`s the bad news. The good news lies in the actions (not the words) of people like Buffett. The time to buy assets at bargain prices are coming. In the long run, the fortunes will be made not by those who invested in the recent past, but those who will invest in the times to come....

khilji, I think my hubby was afraid of my rash driving and bought lots of insurance. lol lol... now whats to be done, i am wondering if i should redeem them.. will they give loans against insurance so i can pay back the loan itself when stocks move up..... pss5588 too was mentoining the same thing....

Oops warren believes Quote if things don`t improve, he`ll "have to go back to delivering newspapers. Unquote Gosh then what happens to us.. i am not going to be fooled though, i will redeem all my insurance money and invest in stocks. LOL ...

yea khilji. Good Day shakti...

Dear m_i_khilji Stock market by design is volatile in nature. Sometimes downside continues little longer. But when market was going up unidirectionally for almost 4 yrs nobody was complaining. This is why one require Asset Allocation and one should invest in line with his asset allocation and rebalnce his portfolio every year accordingly. If u are a long term investor just dont go by everydays move of the market. dont see sensex level and dont see ur portfolio everyday. just continue investing by SIP and reap benefits afterwards. Regds Ashport...

Dear m_i_khilji Please note that Reliance Growth is no longer 5 star fund as per VOL. It has been downgraded to 4 star rating from September. However having said that Rel Growth is still a very good fund and deserves a look by every MF investor in his/her portfolio. Regds Ashport...

In current situation, when markets are going down day by day, what should an inveter do? The more you invest today, the more market go down, next day. As they say, "The more market go down, the more money you push to bring the average cost down." But in current situation, even that is not helping. For example, even after investing on regular basis my folio is down 33 percent as of yesterday....