Markets still cautious

Blog meant for 15 June 2017 Thursday

Dear friends,

Another dull day for our markets. Markets opened weak and fell further but slowly recovered towards the second half of the day and closed 11 points higher.

The decision of the Federal Reserve on interest rates will be announced later tonight and Asian markets will trade based on that news.

As per 30 days moving average, Nifty continues to show Hold signal.
The indications for short term are as follows:

THE HOLDS ARE – HDFC BANK, MARUTI, M&M, HDFC, DIVISLAB, Titan, Asian Paint

Wait to Sell – ITC

Wait to Buy – Infosys, TCS

Just Buy – Axis Bank (it has just crossed the red line and you can wait for one more day before deciding to Buy for short term).

Buy – L&T, Reliance (they are showing buy indications but the only concern is the weakness in our markets especially due to the weak global cues. The decision to buy can be taken based on the Asian market cues tomorrow morning).

Don’t Buy –  LUPIN, BHEL, ONGC, SBI

Long term investors can invest on a monthly basis as per their plan to achieve their financial objectives.

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Question for Today

Question – My father is 65 years old. He has invested most of his savings in Bank FDs. What is the best suggestion for him to earn little more returns than current FD rates?

Answer

At the age of 65, most of the savings of a person needs to be in safer instruments such as FDs, debt mutual funds, post office deposits etc. The main intention in this phase of life is capital protection and stability rather than appreciation and risk taking.

However, since bank FDs are giving only around 6.5-7.0% p.a interest, you can consider debt mutual funds which may give anywhere from 8 to 13 % p.a. returns. The tax treatment for returns earned is as follows:

	Investment holding period	Taxation
Short Term Capital Gain	36 months or lesser	Added to income and taxed as per applicable slab rate
Long Term Capital Gain	more than 36 months	20% with indexation

Another option is to put some amount of money in Dividend Mutual Funds which will usually pay dividends twice a year. The dividends received from equity mutual funds are tax free in the hands of the investors and hence if you are able to get anywhere more than 7 or 8 % p.a. returns, it will be much better than 7% p.a. interest from FDs which may be taxed if your interest is coming to a huge amount every year (above the basic tax limit).

All the best!

Dr.Bharath Chandra