Equity, FDs hot favourites among investors

New Delhi, Jan 28 (UNI) Equity linked insurance and fixed deposit (FD) schemes continue to attract investors for parking their surpluses in urban and metro and rural segments rather than stock markets.

This has been found in a survey conducted by industry chamber Assocham on 'Investment Still Traditional Across Segments, Stock Market Not the First Choice' in which 1,028 investors belonging to rural-urban metropolis took part, consisting of businessmen, professionals, salaried personnel and agriculturists.

Assocham President Venugopal N Dhoot said investors most preferred choices varied across different segments so far as their investment plans are concerned.

In rural India, investors were more inclined towards investing in fixed deposits (36.33 per cent), while in urban (24.81 per cent) and metro (21.86 per cent) segments, they chose equity-linked insurance schemes over other investment tools.

In all, a total of 202 people in the rural segment, 373 in the urban centres and 453 in the metro cities were randomly surveyed.

Occupation-wise, 220 people were chosen from the business pie, 273 among professionals, 382 from the salaried, and 153 among agriculturists.

Despite the stock market going through a boom period, most of the people opted for a traditional mode of investment like fixed deposits, even professionals and businessmen have not opted for stock market, it said.

On an average, 24.9 per cent people went for fixed deposits, 21.3 per cent equity-linked insurance schemes, 15.95 per cent mutual funds, 15.08 per cent real estate, 12.84 per cent stock market, 7.88 per cent gold and silver and 2.04 per cent others.

The survey witnessed more variety across the diverse occupations. Large group of businessmen felt equity-linked insurance schemes as most fruitful in terms of reaping high returns with insurance cover (25 per cent), while majority of professionals (23.08 per cent) found mutual funds to play that role for them amongst different investment instruments through portfolio mix.

Salaried people (32.72 per cent) and agriculturists (35.29 per cent), each individually chose as most preferred investment tool fixed deposits, they want to ensure that their hard-earned money is going into the right places for investment involving lowest levels of risk and fixed returns.

Fixed deposits are a popular instrument of investment, more than 36 per cent of the people surveyed concurred, followed by the real estate (17.25 per cent) and equity-linked insurance schemes (14.82 per cent), the survey said.

More specifically, out of the 32 rural businessmen, maximum percentage that is 34.37 per cent showed inclination to invest in fixed deposits, 18.75 per cent in equity-linked insurance schemes, 12.5 per cent each in gold and silver and real estate, 9.37 per cent in mutual funds and 6.25 per cent in stocks and 6.25 per cent in others.

Among the 43 professionals polled in the internal survey in the rural centres, Assocham noted that real estate is the favoured investment choice attracting 23.25 per cent of the professional lot to it.

Next in line in investment instrument favourites is fixed deposits with 20.93 per cent experts believing in it, followed by mutual funds (16.28 per cent), equity-linked insurance schemes (13.95 per cent), stock market (11.63 per cent), gold and silver (11.63 per cent) and others (2.33 per cent).

A large percentage of the 69 salaried of the rural regions preferred to put their hard-earned money in fixed deposits (43.48 per cent). Real estate (24.64 per cent) is a distant second, ensued by equity-linked insurance schemes (14.49 per cent), mutual funds (7.25 per cent), gold and silver (5.80 per cent) and stock market (4.35 per cent).

In the survey 58 agriculturists were surveyed, it revealed their preferred investment choice to lie in the order of fixed deposits (46.55 per cent), gold and silver (18.96 per cent), equity-linked insurance schemes (12.07 per cent), real estate (8.62 per cent), mutual funds (3.45 per cent), stock market (1.72 per cent) and others (8.62 per cent).

UNI