Determinants of Mutual Funds Investor Preferences and Returns in India: An Empirical Assessment in Delhi- NCR Region

Abstract

India is one of the fast growing world economies and the income and savings all are increasing gradually at a fast pace.  What is important in this situation is that how do we invest our savings for securing our future. When talking about investment avenues, a lot of things come to the mind like bank fixed deposits, savings account, real estate, gold, shares, post office savings etc.  The latest remarkable investment avenues i.e. mutual funds entered in Indian markets in 1990s.  And depending on the investor's goal and objective of investment, different schemes are available.  These schemes help in long term investment, short term investment, dividend payment, regular growth etc.  The expense ratio, the entry and exit load, the reputation of the fund house, the manager's competitive skills, the tax benefits and so many other distinctions, become a real task to select "your” scheme.  But nevertheless investors have chosen, are choosing and would keep on choosing their "favourite scheme”.  In the present study, we focus on investor perception with respect to characteristics of the mutual fund schemes using primary survey.  We found that age, occupation and qualification affect the investment choice.  Next we extracted two factors that governed the investor perception and developed a regression model for prediction of assured returns which are the primary concern of most of the investors.