Launching schemes to suit the market mood is not new to mutual funds and the bull run of the past five years had provided them ample opportunity to come up with novel ideas to garner retail money. Funds have rushed to launch schemes linked to market-caps of companies often under the garb of trying to capture blue-chips of tomorrow. How have these funds performed over the past one year?

For sometime, we have argued that retail investors are one of the casualties of rapid automation of our capital markets and banking processes, and every few days we have a new example to back this. It is the season for profitable companies to pay dividends to their investors. But 10 years after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced mandatory dematerialisation for...

Remember the notorious Rajkumar Basantani of Soundcraft Industries, Adam Comsoft and Kolar Biotech who fled after duping investors and banks of a few hundred crores? The three companies managed to siphon over Rs200 crore from 30 banks that lent him money including Punjab National Bank (Rs11.5 crore), Bharat Overseas Bank (Rs five crore) and Greater Bombay Co-operative Bank (Rs five crore). In...