Mutual Funds · beginner
What is a Mutual Fund?
What a mutual fund is and how it works: pooling, units, NAV and folios, how the industry and its rules developed in India, its features, costs and risks, common misconceptions, and how it compares with other ways to save and invest.
- 01Concept of a Mutual Fund — Pooling Money TogetherA mutual fund pools money from many investors and invests it in securities according to each scheme's stated objective. This lesson explains pooling, units, NAV, who manages and holds the assets, and why returns are market-linked and not guaranteed.
- 02How Mutual Funds Work — NAV, Units, FolioThis lesson follows an investor's money through a mutual fund: how a purchase becomes units, which day's NAV applies, how a redemption is priced and paid, and who keeps the records.
- 03Growth of Mutual Fund Industry in IndiaThis lesson traces India's mutual fund industry from the Unit Trust of India in 1963 to the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 2026, notes the rule changes that shaped today's product, and explains how to read the industry's size figures.
- 04Role of Mutual Funds in the EconomyMutual funds stand between savers and the capital markets. This lesson explains how they channel household savings to companies and governments, how they open the markets to people with small amounts, and what they are not: banks, insurers or guarantors.
- 05Advantages of Mutual Fund InvestingMutual funds offer professional management, diversification, liquidity, disclosure and regulation, and each of these features has a limit. This lesson sets out the features alongside the costs, exit loads, lock-ins and tax rules that go with them.
- 06Common Misconceptions About Mutual FundsSeveral common beliefs about mutual funds do not match how the product works. This lesson takes them in turn: beliefs about risk, about NAV, about who can invest, and about what a SIP or a fixed deposit can promise.
- 07Mutual Funds vs Other InvestmentsThis lesson compares mutual funds with other common homes for savings: fixed deposits, the Public Provident Fund, property, gold, shares bought directly, derivatives and insurance savings plans. It looks at how each produces a return and at risk and liquidity, with tax noted for fixed deposits.