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An emerging market fund has been a golden ticket of sorts over the last two years, when economic growth in countries like China and India was far outpacing that of the US and Europe. Governments in countries with developing economies weren't burdened with the huge debt afflicting the US and other industrialized nations.

However, those dynamics may be shifting as emerging market funds as a group eked out only a meager gain of less than 1% in the first quarter of 2011, compared with an average total return of 6% for US stock funds and 5.3% for European funds. The under-performance mostly resulted form the renewed growth in developed countries attracting more capital away from emerging markets, rather than big problems in the emerging world. Still, the lackluster performance increased the perception that the biggest gains in emerging markets have already been made.

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Since years, the investment world was supposed to be consisting of stocks and bonds. Mutual funds and asset allocation have emerged newly.

May be you've finally decided to invest in mutual funds. Good choice you've made. They can be beneficial to help your portfolios grow gradually. But the key lies in picking the best option.

An inflow of USD 3 billion has been estimated as investors add money to bonds and hybrid funds.

Investing mutual funds in debt securities is the safest and secure investment option which provides regular income and also protects capital invested. They are considered to be the safest in the bond fund category and an ideal option for risk-averse investors.

Good luck and happy investing!

The mutual-fund industry in US continues to cope with the aftereffects of the financial crisis. The industry continues to work to strengthen the money-market funds to make them more resilient under the worst financial conditions.

The downturn has drastically changed the industry, mainly due to invertors shift in risk appetite. The share willing to take above-average risk in exchange for lucrative returns among mutual funds owning households has decreased to 30% from 37% since 2008.

The flows into mutual funds and bond funds have been stronger than expected and flows into domestic equity funds have been weaker than market predictions

The investors pulled out $524 billion from the money-market funds, and invested $228 billion to long-term mutual funds in 2010.The dividend income and the capital-gains distributions that funds paid out during the year were also reinvested by the mutual-fund shareholders.

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