Wise men have often said that your choices define you and the life you are living. Not to sound too philosophical, but the same is true when it comes to your mutual fund portfolio as well. How well your investment portfolio performs is directly related to the funds it is made up of. A wrong choice of funds can be the difference between staggering returns and heavy losses.

Building your portfolio with carefully selected funds is important because even one bad fund can ruin the good done by others. To make sure that doesn’t happen, you need to select funds that have a compelling performance history over various market cycles. Making the right choice is the stepping stone towards achieving your investment goals, but it is not easy.

Today, the Indian mutual fund industry has on offer tens of thousands of schemes for investors to choose from. There are numerous choices within each category, and for a generic category like diversified equity funds (the kind of funds most people invest in), the choices are almost unending.
In such a scenario, what does an investor do? How do you narrow down the funds to invest in and arrive at a small selection to choose from? The answer to these questions is the Value Research Fund Selector tool.

You can access this tool on the homepage of www.valueresearchonline.com, without having to register or paying any fee. The tool allows you to find out the best funds that match your criteria and needs.

For example, if you are looking to invest in a diversified equity fund that has performed well over the past 5 years and currently holds a 5-star rating, then you can use Fund Selector to find what options you have in a jiffy. Simply select the Type (Open End), the Category (All Equity, exc. Sector Funds), the Returns Period (5 Years), the Returns (All Gainers) and the Rating (5-star). Once your selection is done, hit the Get Data button and you will be presented with a list of funds that match your needs.

It is as simple as that. The more precise your query, the more concise results you will get. The list of funds that you get tells you the Fund Name, Launch Date, Category, Rating, Risk Grade, Return Grade, 1-year Return and Expense Ratio. You can look at a fund more closely by clicking on its name, which will take you to the fund’s page. But as far as narrowing down your choices is concerned, the Fund Selector is all you need. Use it to make the right choice.