An investor is deciding the holding period at the time of investment equivalent to an upcoming expense event like children's college education, a foreign trip with family, own retirement etc..
The holding period in the case of children's education may be 15-20 years at what age the investment is initiated whereas that for a foreign trip may be 10-15 years and that for retirement planning may be 25-30 years depending on what age one gets the first earnings.
Indian Mutual Funds used to offer goal based investment products in the 1990s; But later withered to the asset class based investing as competition increased. In 2011, it appeared a going back to basics approach with Fidelity offering its Fidelity India Children Plan (Jan 2011) followed by Peerless MF Child Plan (March 2011).
Those who came earlier are:
UTI Children's career Plan (1993)
Tata Young Citizen's Fund (1995)
Templeton India Asset Plan Education (1998)
Templeton India Asset Plan Gift
LIC Nomura Children's Fund (2001)HDFC Children's Gift Plan (2001) : you have two set of funds in this ; a savings plan or an investment plan
ICICI Prudential Child Care Plan (study) 2001
ICICI Prudential Child Care (Gift)
Magnum Children's Benefit Plan (2002)
In the Retirement Planning Class, we have two :
UTI Retirement Benefit Plan and Templeton India Pension fund
UTI brought a special plan for Women folk: UTI Mahila Unit Plan
Basically all these are balanced funds with 60:40 equity and debt managed to less expense for the fund management & administration and stability in the rate of return generated. But the investor is personally identifying with such funds and normally stick to an investment strategy of SIP over a longer period or a one time investment with longer holding period. This let the investor sail through the ups and downs of the market fluctuations because one need something to look upon to move forward.
happy investing
