Among many other investment opportunities, investing in mutual funds is the most sought after option for its capacity of generating safe and secured returns. These funds are operated by professional money managers, who allocate the assets of the funds with the sole aim to generate capital gains or income for the fund’s investors. The fund’s portfolio is structured and maintained to be in tune to the investment objectives and needs of the investors.

Mutual funds pave way for the small and individual investor easy access to professionally manage portfolios of equities, bonds and other securities. Every shareholder participates in proportion to their contribution in gains and the losses of the funds’ investors. However, making decision for investing in mutual fund requires in depth knowledge and information about various factors like market scenario, government policies, performance of the particular fund etc and thus it is advisable to hire an experienced and professional Mutual Fund Advisor for investing in successful and result oriented fund options.

So who is mutual fund advisor? For a layman and for the person, who is new to investment markets it is advisable to take help of mutual fund advisor before taking any kind of action. Mutual Fund Agent or the advisors are the qualified professionals, who can understand the purpose and nuances of the fund. Their important job is to work out and figure out the fund that is in sync and the one that matches the interest of the investors.

A good investment advisor should be the one, who should be able to connect the needs of the investors with the features of various schemes and advise a portfolio in sync to those needs. He/she should be well qualified and trained enough for the job so that he/she is able to understand all the features and ins and outs of the fund options and analyze and compare options from umpteen numbers that are available in front of him/her.

Advisor should be able to read between the lines and understand the investor’s situation in the best possible way before giving advice related to mutual fund investments. He/she should be well aware that it is more important to invest in the appropriate scheme or the one that is best suitable to the current situation of the investor instead of investing in the best scheme. The advisor then constructs the portfolio and regularly monitors the characteristics of the schemes and the portfolio and thereby helps to review those schemes.

Below are certain things that one should keep in the mind before hiring mutual fund advisor:

1. Qualifications and Experience of the Advisor: Investing in mutual fund without proper planning and advice can always prove to be costly. Hence it may be advisable to engage a good and an experienced advisor. But, before hiring one, it is imperative to check the qualifications and experience of the advisor. See that he/she has a professional degree to support the same. Also the person should have in depth knowledge of varied assets such as equity, fixed income and gold. He and this team of personnel should be in the position to decode and understand how the asset classes would be affected by various domestic and international events. This is important as the advisor would require to advice and introduce you to the products that will meet your life stage needs as and when required.

2. Past track Record: Past track record is the epitome of the experience and expertise, which the mutual fund advisor has. Ask for reference when getting engaged with the advisor. Make use of social media websites to understand and study the performance of the investments recommended by him/her in the past. This will give you some idea of their strengths and weakness.

3. Easily Approachable: Ensure that the advisor is easily accessible and he and his team are always there to resolve the queries in a reasonable time frame. It is most important that you entrust your money to the person who is easily accessible by any means of communication that you opt for be it telephonic, email and meetings.

4. Can he offer Comprehensive Services: It is the common tendency of most of the investors not to discuss their finances and investments options with any stranger. So they would expect to hire the advisor, who can handle their investments with confidentiality. So it is advisable to hire the advisor who is unbiased and can offer mutual fund investment options from all the fund houses and not just one or two funds.

Below are realistic reasons as to why one should hire an experienced and professional fund advisor:

1. All time Dedicated Attention: Professionally financial mutual fund advisors put in all their time and potential to managing the financial portfolio of their clients. They put in their knowledge, contacts, experience, vocational expertise and all their functional abilities to corner apt investment opportunities for their clients.

2. In Depth and Consistent review of Investments: Good advisor frequently review your investments in terms of opportunities and provide proper advice as and when required.

3. Saves Time and Minimize Stress: An efficient financial advisor will proactively take all the finance management responsibilities thereby saving time and minimizing stress.

4. Specialized Capacities: An experienced advisor will put forward investment strategies that you may not be able to think of your own. His experience will broaden your investment knowledge and help you access good market information, big investment opportunities and superior portfolio efficiency.