Equity Funds – Investor willing to undertake risks…offers maximum returns. Debt Funds – Investors who prefer regular income and safety. Gilt Funds - Medium to long-term investors who are averse to risk. Balanced Funds - Medium- to long-term investors willing to take moderate risks. Liquid Funds – Ideal for corporate, institutional investors and business houses who invest their funds for very short periods. Tax Saving Funds – Those who want to avail tax benefits.

Draw down your investment objective. Collect information from different sources offering them. Pick out companies consistently performing above average. Mutual funds industry indices are helpful in comparing different funds as well as different plans offered by them. Get a clear picture of fees & associated cost, taxes (for non-tax free funds) for all your short listed funds and how they affect your returns. Best mutual funds maximize returns and minimize risks. Sharpe’s Ratio explains whether a fund is risk free based on its expected returns compared against a risk free money market fund. Some funds have the advantage of low minimum initial investments. One can start investing even with Rs a month. This is advisable for building asset bases over a long period with small regular investment

Don't go by the past performance alone. Don't go by hearsay about the reputations of a fund. There are various rating agencies which index the mutual funds regularly based on multiple factors. Don't invest huge sums of money in a single fund or all the money in one go. Spread out your investments rationally. For example: Index funds for high returns, bond funds for lower risks etc. Don't ignore absolute returns. NAVs and percentage growths don't factor-in the taxes and charges. Higher loads can diminish you in absolute returns. Some of the funds load you at both buying as well as selling. Even no load funds have fees such as Rule 12-b fees. Don't chase a mutual fund because it is performing great in a bull run in the stock market. Once the market stagnates or the trend reverses these funds will follow suit. Don't compare a mutual fund across the category. This means a diversified fund should not be compared with index fund. While choosing a best one compare funds from the same category regardless of the promoting companies.