Top Mutual Funds for 2024 Retirement Plan : Which funds will help me meet my retirement, other goals?

I am a salaried person and own a small flat in my home town. I have been regularly investing in the stock market since the last one year and have done well so far. Prior to this, I used to invest in public provident fund. Now, I want to invest in mutual funds to meet two financial goals of my child’s education and my retirement, which will be effective after 21 years. Which funds should I choose?

-Name withheld on request

Top Mutual Funds for 2024 Retirement Plan : One important aspect of stock market investing that can help you in future is that such investment should be done for the long term and requires patience. When you invest in a company, you invest for its prospective growth and this may take some time to unlock the potential. Many investors who have recently started investing in direct stocks tend to buy and sell looking at short-term returns and this may not be the best way to invest in equities. One’s experience in the initial stage of investing matters a lot in gaining confidence. There have been occasions when investors were quite excited about the surging markets and then shied away for a long time from equities when the market consolidation happened as they started seeing losses due to this short-term approach.

Equity mutual funds offer a better way of investing as they are full-time managed by professionals and the portfolios are well diversified. Your plan of considering mutual funds is correct and you can start building a good portfolio for your child’s education and retirement by investing in these funds: Nifty 50 Index Fund, ICICI Prudential Bluechip Fund, HDFC Flexicap Fund, Parag Parikh Flexicap Fund, Kotak Emerging Equity Fund and Nippon India Small Cap Fund.

These funds will help you invest across large-cap, mid- cap and small-cap companies. One of the best parts about mutual fund investing is that it helps you focus on your professional career and personal life as you need not keep looking at stock markets every day or worry about market movement. The mutual fund managers take care of all these events, they do all the buying and selling within the portfolio with the help of adequate information and processes.

Harshad Chetanwala is co-founder, MyWealthGrowth.