Mutual Funds& SIPs

Most schemes accept an SIP from ₹500 a month, and many from ₹100. There is effectively no minimum barrier to starting. The more useful question is not the minimum but the amount you can sustain through a bad year without stopping — a ₹5,000 SIP maintained for ten years beats a ₹25,000 SIP abandoned in month fourteen.

Four to six is enough for almost every individual investor. Beyond that you are usually buying the same underlying companies through different wrappers, which adds paperwork and tracking error without adding diversification. If you hold ten or more schemes, the single most useful thing we can do is show you the overlap.

Your fixed rupee amount buys more units at a lower price, which is precisely the mechanism an SIP exists to exploit. Stopping an SIP during a fall converts a temporary drawdown into a permanent loss and is the most expensive mistake retail investors make. If a fall makes you want to stop, the allocation was too aggressive for you and that is the thing to fix — not the SIP.

Yes. An SIP can be paused, reduced or stopped at any time with no penalty, and most AMCs allow a pause of one to six months online. Units already bought stay invested. There is no lock-in on an open-ended scheme other than ELSS, which locks each instalment for three years from its own date.

Tax depends on whether the scheme is equity- or debt-oriented and how long you held the units, and the rates and holding-period definitions have been changed more than once in recent years. Because of that we confirm the position in force at the time you actually redeem rather than quoting a number here that may have moved. What we do plan for in advance is the sequence — which folios to redeem first, and in which financial year.