LONG TERM INVESTMENTS OPTIONS

Investments made for more than one year are termed long-term investments.

1) Post Office Savings Scheme:
Post office monthly investment scheme is a low risk scheme which can be availed through any post office. It provides interest rate of 8% with a maturity of 6 years. Minimum investment amount is 1000 and additional investments in multiples of 1500 to a maximum of 4,50,000 for individuals and 9,00,000 jointly. Bonus of 10% is paid at the time of maturity. Premature withdrawals can be made and it charges you 5% of the total principal and bonus is cancelled.

2) Public Provident Fund:
This is a 15 year scheme with 7.1% interest rate compounded annually. PPF account can be opened through any nationalized bank. Tax benefits can be availed and interest accrued is tax free. Withdrawals can be made after 7 years from the investment.

3) Company Fixed Deposits:
Company borrows amount and pays a fixed rate of interest monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually. There are also cumulative fixed deposits where entire principal amount along with interest is paid at the time of maturity mostly 3-5 years. The rate of interest varies between 8-12% per annum after deducting all taxes.

4) Bonds and Debentures:
It is a fixed rate debt instrument issued by the companies with the intuition of raising capital. Central or state government corporations issue these kind of bonds. Debentures are the debt issued by the companies just like bonds.

5) Mutual Funds:
It is a pooled investment vehicle where money is gathered from investors and investing the same into different types of portfolios and the return is shared among the investors. The risk is diverted with the mutual funds. It returns a decent rate of 8-10% depending on the portfolio. Mutual funds are managed by AMC(Asset Management Company)

6) Security Markets:
Buying and selling securities in share market is the riskiest option and yields a higher return of 15% and the losses can be estimated more than returns. In order to avoid the risk of securities many investors use mutual funds as the safest option. Many strategies have to made to earn expected returns. NSE and BSE are the share markets of India regulated by SEBI.

The options specified above may land you at the expected returns if the investments were made with utmost care.