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Starting mutual fund investments: Smart strategies every first-time investor should know

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Did you know that in July 2025, the mutual fund industry reached the ₹75.35 lakh crore mark for the first time? This remarkable rise shows how mutual funds continue to attract investors through benefits such as professional management, diversification, liquidity, affordability via Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), and the potential for long-term wealth creation.

For beginners, however, reaping these benefits requires careful planning. To build confidence and avoid common errors, it is important to adopt smart strategies. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

1. Define your goals and time horizon

Before you invest a single rupee, you must set financial goals, which could include:

•    Child’s education

•    Vehicle purchase

•    House downpayment

•    Retirement

For long-term goals (five to seven years or more), equity funds or hybrid funds could be suitable as they offer higher growth potential. For shorter-term goals, many prefer debt funds, as they carry lower risk. Clarity of purpose ensures the right match between fund type and investment duration.

2. Understand your risk appetite

Every mutual fund carries risk, but the type and level differ. For example:

•    Equity funds can show sharp short-term fluctuations but offer strong potential for long-term wealth creation.

•    Debt funds react to interest rate changes and credit quality, offering steadier returns but lower growth.

•    Hybrid funds combine multiple asset classes to balance risk and returns.  

As a first-time investor, it makes sense to match your financial goals and risk tolerance with the right category. Chasing only high returns often leads to panic during downturns. A clear understanding of risk helps you stay calm and make steady, thoughtful decisions.

3. Invest in SIPs

SIPs enable you to put a fixed amount into mutual funds at regular intervals, usually monthly. This method removes the pressure of timing the market and builds discipline by treating investment like a routine expense.

SIPs benefit from rupee-cost averaging. Your contributions buy more units when prices fall and fewer when prices rise. This gradually smooths market volatility and supports steady wealth creation. For first-time investors, SIPs offer a simple, low-stress entry into mutual funds.

4. Diversify your portfolio

Diversification is a golden rule of investing. Divide your capital across different types of funds and asset classes. For example, a first-time investor could consider a mix of large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap funds, or perhaps a hybrid fund that combines both equity and debt.

This strategy minimises risk, as poor performance in one fund can be offset by good performance in another.

5. Compare funds using key parameters

Do not purchase a fund just because it performed well in the past year. Look at its track record over five to 10 years, consistency of returns, and the experience of the fund manager. The expense ratio is also critical, as higher costs reduce net returns. Analysing risk levels, portfolio composition, and fund objectives helps you identify the best fit.

A thoughtful review ensures the selected fund supports long-term objectives.

6. Stay disciplined and review periodically

Mutual funds deliver meaningful results when investors stay committed for the right duration. Exiting too early due to short-term volatility often means settling for less than the investment’s potential. Equity funds often need five to seven years to show results, while debt or hybrid funds may suit shorter timelines.

Regular reviews, ideally once a year, are important to check performance, costs, and strategy. This balance keeps investments aligned with changing financial priorities.

To sum up

Starting mutual fund investments requires sensible planning and discipline. Set clear goals, understand different types of risk, use SIPs for steady contributions, compare funds on meaningful parameters, diversify properly, and stay invested with patience.

These strategies can help first-time investors avoid common mistakes, gain confidence, and make money work towards defined goals.

Most importantly, they can build a foundation that supports both short-term needs and long-term aspirations.

Start your mutual fund journey today! 
 

MAM

Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement

Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted

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MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.

The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.

The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.

Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.

Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.

For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.

More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.

The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.

In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.

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Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board

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Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.

Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.

“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.

The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.

Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.

The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.

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MAM

Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships

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SINGAPORE: Anuvrat Rao has taken charge as APAC  head of commerce and signals partnerships at Meta, steering monetisation deals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from Singapore. The former Google executive, known for launching Google Assistant, PWAs, AMP and Firebase across Asia-Pacific, steps into the role after a high-growth stint as chief business officer at Locofy.ai.

At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.

Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.

Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.

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