Rathi Arora, 34, a business manager based in Delhi seconds Gugnani’s views. “I am disturbed by the fall in the value of my portfolio, but I am looking at it as a long-term play so will stay put. I am going for a five-year horizon and equity has always delivered in that time frame.”

And it is not only investors in their 30s or 40s who have been taking the wise decision of investing in mutual funds, the younger generation is also looking at it as a safer bet to park their savings. Ashmeet Shahpuri, a 26-year-old consultant with an MNC who has been investing in equities regularly burnt his fingers in the recent market meltdown and shifted focus to MFs, however, the timing for that too wasn’t great. Shahpuri invested in five mutual fund schemes as a tax saving exercise in January when the Sensex was nearing 21,000 points.

“I invested what I thought was a good time to buy but since then I have been crying,” says Shahpuri. However, he does not have any plans to offload his holdings immediately. “I have notional losses of around Rs 30,000 from the MF schemes but as they are tax saving schemes, I can’t redeem them as I will lose the benefits, all that I can do is look at the NAV and cry.” Despite the volatility, he does not want to invest in PF or NSC “just because of the kind of gestation period they have and if I stay invested for 3 years, I expect to not only make good the losses but earn some profits too,” he smiles.

... contd.