What is a Mutual Fund?how does it woorks?how to juge that any Specific fund is bad/good?

i m 26 and want to invest some of my saving in Mutual Fund.pls gid me.

Mutual fund offers everything an investor looks for, professional management, decent returns, transparency, risk containment and liquidity.

There are many mutual funds each from reputed business houses in India like State Bank Of India, Reliance, HDFC, ICICI, TATA, Sundaram Mutual Fund etc and foreign mutual funds like Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, etc. All the funds have given good returns and has been consistent for last many years. One of the scheme which has completed 10 years 5 months, Rs.1 lakh invested then is now more than Rs.20 lakhs.(Past returns may or may not be sustained in future.)

When you buy a mutual fund, you hand over the task of investing to a qualified and probably more knowledge fund manager who is paid for finding the right opportunities for you. As for customer services standards, mutual funds in India have been constantly raising the bar they have set for themselves. The services standards are comparable to what you will get any where else in the word.

What's more, you don't need millions to invest in a mutual fund. A lumpsum with Rs.5000 and just Rs.500/Rs.1000 for monthly investments.

To Select the best fund first you need to select the Investment Type (i.e. Equity, Debt, Balanced, Technology, Pharma or Cement). Then you need to compare the ROR (Rate of Return) for more than 5 years for the selected funds.

I'm also one of the so call "investor" of Mutual Fund. Actually mutual fund is quite a good type of saving because it had a quite high interest compare to normal savings. But however, the return of the saving cannot being seen in quite short time, so must be patient then.

Here go's, there are many type of mutual fund depend on which fund you interested. There are fund which are high risk, moderate risk and low risk. So there are some homework you need to do before investing in the fund. As my suggestion, for you, I suggest investing in fund which are low risk and the interest will be declared every year. But if you are the person who can take risk, try some overseas fund which are moderate in risk.

Many people thought this kind of fund is similar to market stock exchange. But it does not, it just there are some similar charateristic only. One of the similarity is when you bought the fund for example 0.25cent/unit. After few years, you sold at 0.50cent/unit, so you had earn a 0.25cent/unit. (Just example only). However, they will also declared some interest to you on every year or half, depend on the fund itself.

I think that all I can tell you. Since I just start invest this one years ago. However, you need to do some research before you purchase the mutual funds. Try to find a mutual fund person to consult.

Hope this will help.

PS: Are you a Malaysian???