A Study of the Attitude and Preferences of the People towards Investment in Equity Shares and Mutual Funds

Investment refers to making our money to earn for us without taking mush exposure to risk above our risk appetite. In general sense it means the sacrifice of current monetary value for further profit. People invest in different avenues irrespective of their age, gender, occupation, income level in order to meet their future financial goals. When people have extra money above their consumption level they invest that money in different investment options such as gold, fixed income, bonds, securities and mutual funds. The choice of investment avenues depends upon the risk appetite of the investors. Generally the people of India are natural money savers and they look for an investment vehicle which is less risky and which generates higher returns. The investment option chosen by the people of any country affects its Gross Domestic Product and also the economic growth. Even though investing money in stocks and securities are gaining importance people are not coming forward to invest their money in these investment options. This may be because of lack of knowledge about the stock market or people consider stock market investment is risky compared to other investment options.

In this study we have made an effort to understand the attitude and preferences of the people towards various investment avenues specifically mutual funds and the equity. After getting responses from the respondents we have found that most of the women have opted fixed deposits to invest their money whereas men have chosen shares and gold is another main investment vehicle to park investors' money. The responses given by the respondents states that they consider mutual fund as a best investment avenue followed by the real estate and gold. The main reason for selecting mutual funds as best Investment Avenue is they reduces the risk of portfolio, they provide asset diversification and moreover they are managed by the professionally skilled fund managers. In this study we found that the main reason for people not coming forward to invest in shares is the fluctuations in the market as well as lack of knowledge about the stock market.