By Tensing Rodrigues
On Tuesday we had looked at some sectors of Indian economy which could enable us to ride smoothly through the ups and downs of the stock market, earning us reasonable returns over a long horizon.

One option is to get directly into the stock market and buy some scrips. The other is to invest in some mutual fund schemes that have sufficient exposure to those sectors.
We had identified three sectors: the FMCG, the industrials and the technology. Now we need to identify the MF schemes that can enable us to buy into these sectors. Let us begin with the FMCG. Here again you have two options: you can invest in sector funds dedicated to FMCG or you can invest in diversified equity funds with a high exposure to FMCG stocks. There are three dedicated FMCG funds: Franklin, ICICI Prudential and SBI Magnum. The three taken together have averaged an annual return of 45 per cent, 20 per cent and 17 per cent over 1, 5 and 10 years respectively, which is far superior to the growth of BSE FMCG index over the respective periods. Among the three, SBI Magnum has outperformed the other two in the last one year, while Franklin was the topper over the five year period and ICICI Pru was the topper over the ten year period.
Looking at the diversified funds with high exposure to FMCG, there is none good enough apart from two funds from the UTI stable. The best of the lot is UTI Master Value with 13 per cent exposure to FMCG. The fund has returned 54 per cent, 19 per cent and 24 per cent over 1, 5 and 10 year periods. The other fund, UTI MNC Fund, with 21% exposure to FMCG, has returned 38 per cent, 18 per cent and 18 per cent over 1, 5 and 10 year periods.
To capture the industrial space we will have to look basically at the consumer durables, automobile and engineering sectors. The funds with relatively high exposure to consumer durables are Birla Sun Life India GenNext (8.88 per cent exposure), Birla Sun Life Commodity Equities - Global Precious Metals (8.74 per cent) and UTI India Lifestyle (7.32 per cent).
The funds with relatively high exposure to automobiles are UTI Transportation and Logistics (67.60 per cent) and Sundaram BNP Paribas Select Small Cap (8.74 per cent). The funds with relatively high exposure to engineering sector are Sundaram BNP Paribas CAPEX Opportunities (35.32 per cent), Birla Reliance Diversified Power Sector (25.34 per cent) and UTI Energy (22.34 per cent).
There are five dedicated technology funds: Magnum IT, Franklin Infotech, ICICI Prudential Technology, Birla Sun Life New Millennium  and DSPBR Technology. Com.
Besides these several diversified funds have a high exposure to technology. These include Birla Sun Life India Opportunities  Fund (41.27 per cent), UTI Services Industries Fund (30.89 per cent) and ICICI Prudential Services Industries (28.41 per cent).