Personal Finance Blog- India V 2.0

AIG Investments launches the AIG World Gold Fund (On Apr 7 , 2008)

News - Source MFI-AIG Investments has announced the launch of the AIG World Gold Fund – an open ended Fund of Funds Scheme investing in companies engaged in the extracting, processing and marketing of gold through an international fund. The primary investment objective of the Scheme is to provide long term capital appreciation by investing predominantly in units of AIG PB Equity Fund Gold based in Zurich. The New Fund Offer will be open for purchase from 15 April - 14 May 2008 and will re-open for ongoing purchase/redemption no later than 12 June 2008. The scheme will offer both the options: Growth and Dividend with Dividend Payout and Dividend Reinvestment facilities. The Scheme may, at the discretion of the Investment Manager, also invest in the units of other similar overseas mutual fund schemes. The Scheme may also invest a certain portion of its corpus in debt and money market securities and/or units of debt/liquid schemes of Mutual Funds, in order to meet liquidity requirements from time to time. The scheme will invest 80% – 100% in units of AIG PB Equity Gold Fund and other similar overseas fund and the rest 0% - 20% in debt and money market securities and units of debt and liquid schemes of domestic mutual funds.

Views- This fund seems similar to DSPML world gold fund in concept. This would be a good option for those who want to diversify into Gold. This fund would be considered as a DEBT fund for taxation of dividends and redemptions.

Planning to SIP??

No one is talking about markets and investments these days , as they used to talk a couple of months ago. Conversations on Stock/ MF , Browsing of Investment sites/blogs, Display/ reading of investment mags. are not a great trend now as it was sometime ago.

The Fad seems to be gone. For one who is seriously looking at creating wealth for the long term, equity markets are a great place to invest now. Not that the worst is over yet. But investors who invest during tough times and are patient ( 5 years and above) will reap great benefits during the boom cycle that follows.

If you have the right investment spirit , this should be the best time for you to start an SIP in a diversified mutual fund ( having a long term investment view). If you are already sipping it out, you continue to be on the right path of wealth creation

Being aware of your finances.

When I was talking to a couple of my friends/colleagues , I got great surprises .

Person A was telling that he had never claimed his medical bills ( 15,000 Limit) in his entire career spanning more than a decade. Not that he wasn't aware of it, but he didn't care to take time to submit claims.

Another one said, he never bothered to withdraw/ transfer his PF from his previous employers. He is with the present employer for six years. He says he doesn't understand finance nitty gritties to do this!!!

In the same way, many succumb to buying money back policies or ULIPs as 'Investments" because they do not do enough research.

Another friend of mine doesn't stretch himself to transfer his funds from his savings account to an 80C instrument and ends up paying extra tax every year.

In none of the cases, this is happening because they can afford to do away with their money. It's because they fail to take that small initiative towards understanding an instrument or making an effort to being aware and acting in time.

In this context, we are in April and this is the right time to plan your tax savings and other investments for the financial year.

Latest tax calculator 2008-09

Tax Calculator for you - Courtesy ( ICICI Pru life)
http://www.iciciprulife.com/public/images/ICICI%20Taxculator%20Deskmate.zip

Excel sheet to calculate tax liability , tax amount , 2008-09