Saturday, April 30, 2011

ING FINANCIAL PLANNING FUND - A REVIEW

WANT INSTANT DIVERSIFICATION, THEN LOOK AT ING OPTIMIX FINANCIAL PLANNING FUND







ING has come out with a New Fund Offer ING Optimix Financial Planning Fund which is a Fund of Funds and aims to invest in mutual funds of AMCs other than ING.
This, according to ING people, is to help investors simplify their investment.
While on the face of it, the Fund offer and plans look confusing, the concept is good though not new.
The Fund aims to invest in carefully selected BEST OF BREED Funds from differennt AMCs  and get the best returns for your investment.
The Fund will invest in Four Different Asset Classes - Liquid Funds, Debt Funds, Equity Funds and Gold ETFs.
And, yes, the Fund will also aim to give its investors flexibility to choose from four Convenient Plans catering to Different Risk Tolerance levels.







While this isn't the first multi-manager FoF from the AMC, it is unique given its strategy of investing across the equity, debt and gold asset classes. In contrast, FoFs from other fund houses typically invest in funds from their AMC only. Besides, this is the first FoF that has an option to add exposure to gold ETFs.






MY ANALYSIS :
PROS:
1. With hundreds of funds to choose from, this Fund ensures that your job is simplified. And monitoring/switching too is not your headache as the Fund Manager will do the same as and when required.
2. Since this fund will not invest in inhouse schemes of ING, you can be sure of having his investment into the Best of Funds as the selection of funds is done purely on merit.

CONS:

1. The entire performance is based on the funds selected and how they fare.  Wrong selection of funds or delay in identifying laggard funds could affect the overall returns of the fund.
2. Similar products from the same Fund House, like the ING Optimix Multi Manager Equity Option has been very disappointing in their performance till now.
3. Additional Costs due to its Fund of funds approach.


RECOMMENDATION :
As with every fund, this fund too has its pros and cons, Passive Investors and First time investors wanting an exposure to equities, this is a Great Fund to take exposure in.
Others, your Fund Advisor could well do a better job.
Investors would however do better to 'PAY FOR QUALITY ADVISE" and invest in Different Funds of different AMCs based on their Asset Allocation, Risk Aversion which a Qualified Financial Advisor would be in a much better position to advise.

Best of luck,
Srikanth Matrubai

Also visit http://equityadvise.blogspot.com

2 comments:

  1. What I really see a miss here is a free switch between the plans, else it was tempting enough for me to invest.
    -Saket

    ReplyDelete
  2. I need to know the specific excel formulas used by financial planners orlando, this is for an assignment, not really looking to go into the financial planning career.

    ReplyDelete

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