Time To Hold Some Gold Again

There are good times. There are bad times. And, there are uncertain times. We are living through one of the latter periods. If you’ve lost money this year, take heart, since you’re in good company.  A look at the returns of mutual funds between January and November 2018 shows many of the best professional money managers suffered losses. The popular indices suggest that it’s been a disappointing year. The Nifty was up by four per cent during those 11 months. That’s less than a fixed deposit would have earned but at least it was positive. An index ETF would have returned around four per cent too, allowing for tracking errors. However, most active mutual funds failed to match the index returns and indeed, the vast majority suffered losses. Among large cap mutual funds, 32 had positive returns while 123 had negative returns. Among multi caps, 97 lost money while...