Is there any risk in investing in Debt Mutual Funds?
I would like to invest some of my funds for a period of 12-14 months in some risk free investments with a return of about 11-15% one of my friend suggested me to go for debt MF.
All I want to know is whether debt mf are risk free or there are some risk involved in debt mf similar to equity mutual fund. please help me in this.



May 6th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
No investment is “risk free”. The closest thing to risk free that exists, and is commonly used in textbooks as the “risk free” rate, is the U.S. t-bill.
And these are currently offering rates far lower than 11% (more like .5% yields).
A debt mutal fond (or bond mutual fund) has less risk than an equities mutual fund, however, less risk implies less expected return.
There is a postive relation between risk and expected return. The higher the risk, the higher the expected return.
While it is all said and done, looking back, there may have been investments that substantially outperformed other investments.
However, looking forward, there do not exist investments that have Low Risk, High expected return. That is just not how it works. If such an investment existed, everyone would flock to them driving down the expected return.
What all this means is finding a bond fund with an annual return of 11-15% that is risk free is simply not going to happen, because it does not exist.