AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON FACTORS INFLUENCING THE MUTUAL FUND/SCHEME SELECTION BY RETAIL INVESTORS IN INDIA

: MF is a retail product designed to target small investors, salaried people and others who are intimidated by the mysteries of stock market but, nevertheless, like to reap the benefits of stock market investing. At the retail level, investors are unique and are a highly heterogeneous group. Hence, their fund/scheme selection also widely differs. Investors demand inter-temporal wealth shifting as he or she progresses through the life cycle. This necessitates the Asset Management Companies (AMCs) to understand the fund/scheme selection/switching behaviour of the investors to design suitable products to meet the changing financial needs of the investors. With this background a survey was conducted among 350 Mutual Fund Investors in 10 Urban and Semi Urban centers to study the factors influencing the fund/scheme selection behaviour of Retail Investors. This paper discusses the survey findings. It is hoped that it will have some useful managerial implication for the AMCs in their product designing and marketing.