Today i saw the ad of a leading financial co. making their (false/cheating)commitments. The ad reiterated the importance of securityB) of your money. For the last 4-5 years, there had been a bandwagon trend of investments in India in which the money of general-public was being blindly invested/risked in so called 'growth';) or 'acclerator';) funds, and those funds which talked about being conservative & cautious were thought to be a fool's choice. But today while the whole world is reeling under 'acute' recession, funds cos. are trying hard to convince the investors with some 'back to basics':D choices by making a conservative and cautious investments. Today banks are very cautious in lending various types of loans or issuing credit cards.
But just an year ago these very cos. were making fun of public-money by playing very riskyB) games with the investor's hard-earned money. Many financial/marketing cos. were upselling 'ULIP' schemes or Mutual Funds by explaining such risky & sophisticated investment-schemes merely over the telephone to ordinary laymen:roll: who had little idea of NAVs or even the Objective of the Funds in which their money was being invested/risked. They rushed their marketing execs. across to the customer's place; defying all the ethics these execs themselves not only just filled-up the forms but also selected the critical/material details like the Percentage of his investment going into Equity & Debt without even asking to that person whom it mattered the most! These malpractises kept on going and the companies kept on doing monopolies in the name of providing 'personalised'B) services (of robbing money) and our govt. kept on sleeping over it. And it's not a hidden fact that most of the so-called 'Baap of Funds'B) today are giving negative returns to the tunes of anywhere between -20 to -55%. So where in this world has gone such huge amount of money which the public had invested by relying on the promises made by these Cos. the BSE, the SEBI, the RBI and last but not the least the Federal Govt itself? This money flowed into the 'black holes' of bad debts, into the losses incurred by numerous failed enterprises, into the huge salaries of the loss-making organisations, into the risky 'sub-prime' type loans which were never paid back or the most recent scandal which has been dubbed as the 'Enron of India' the Satyam Debacle. It's evident that during the economic-boom (at least on BSE) in india, the financial Cos. as well as the Federal Govt. became a little bit overambitious (or greedy) and in order to push the limits, they perhaps crossed it. The fall-out is infront of us which the general-public is suffering. Its an ironical fact to digest that these Cos. steer clear of any regulatory/punitive actions just by mentioning- 'investments are subject to market risks':>!! Today the ordinary investor feels cheated and has lost confidence in the economic system itself, it will certainly take much longer time to regain that.