2. Features of Gilt
Funds
1. Gilt funds are debt funds and they invest primarily in government securities or bonds (called G-Secs in India for short). And government bonds carry sovereign guarantee.
2. Gilt funds provide good liquidity to investors –
investors can redeem their units in one or two working days. To meet
redemption needs of investors, gilt funds keep some money in money market
instruments.
3. Gilt funds invest in Government of India bonds and / or State government bonds.
4. Gilt funds are in existence in India for more than 25 years.
5. Investors typically invest more money in gilt
funds when they expect interest rates to fall.
6. Investors may withdraw their money from gilt funds when they perceive that interest rates reached a bottom and when chances of rates falling further are remote.
7. There is an inverse relationship between bond prices and yields, that is, if bond prices go up, their yields will come down. And when bond prices weaken, the bond yields rise.
8. In general, if interest rates come down, the net asset value (NAV) of a gilt fund will most likely go up; and if interest rates go up, the NAV may fall.
9. There are no entry loads for gilt funds, but a few funds may
charge a small exit load if you withdraw the money within a week or a month of investing.
10. They are very convenient to invest for investors -- as there are various FinTech tools / platforms available for investing in gilt funds.
11. Prices of long-term bonds are more
sensitive to interest rate changes than prices of short-term papers. As such,
long-term bonds gain the most when interest rates fall. On the contrary, if
interest rates rise, the prices of long-term bonds lose more compared to
short-term bonds.
3. Tax liability
Investors (resident individuals) have to pay tax on realised capital gains if any. Prior to 01Apr2023, gilt funds used to enjoy indexation benefit; and tax rates for short-term capital gain (STCG) and long-term capital gain (LTCG) were different.
Since 01Apr2023, gilt funds and other debt funds underwent major taxation changes. Effective 01Apr2023, there is no indexation benefit for gilt funds and there is no difference between STCG and LTCG.
For gilt funds that are bought on or after 01Apr2023, the capital gains if any are to be included in your income and they are taxed according to your tax slab.
For example, if you are in 20-percent tax slab, all gains on gilt funds (that were invested on or after 01Apr2023) will be taxed at 20.80 percent (including health & education cess) and if you are in the highest tax bracket, you will have to pay a tax of around 42 percent (including health & education cess).
4. Gilt funds worth considering
There are 30 gilt funds available according to data from Value Research online. Of these 30, 15 funds have been removed for this analysis as either they have a track record of less than three years or their asset size is less than Rs 300 crore.
Table 1: Snapshot of select gilt funds:
In table 1 below, there are 13 gilt funds (direct plans with growth options) and two exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As the name suggests, ETFs can be traded (bought / sold) on stock exchanges without directly going to the individual mutual fund company.
All the 13 gilt funds have positive three-year Sharpe ratio, but the two ETFs in the list have negative Sharpe ratio.
It's not clear why the two ETFs have negative Sharpe ratio. My educated guess is: because standard deviation of an ETF is higher on account of higher turnover ratio. It may be noted ETFs are traded on a daily basis and they tend to have higher turnover ratios.
Sharpe ratio is simply the return per unit of risk. Risk is usually represented by standard deviation (a statistical tool) of returns. The higher the volatility of a fund, the greater the standard deviation.
It's better to check the asset size, average maturity, modified duration and yield to maturity of a gilt fund before investing.
Modified duration and average maturity are related to each other. Modified duration indicates the sensitivity of a fund to interest rate changes.
The higher the modified duration, the greater the sensitivity of a fund or bond. For example, Tata Gilt securities fund has a modified duration of 4.1 years. If interest rate go up by one percentage point, you can expect to lose nearly 4.1 percent from the fund.
On the other hand, if interest rates fall by one percentage point, you can expect to gain nearly 4.1 percent from the fund.
To take another example: the modified duration of Bandhan Govt Securities fund is 11.6 years. If interest rates rise by one percentage point, you can expect to lose nearly 11.6 percent from the fund and vice versa.
So, Bandhan Govt Securities fund has higher modified duration compared to Tata Gilt Securities fund.
As such, Bandhan Govt Securities fund is more sensitive to interest rate changes than Tata Gilt Securities fund.
If you expect interest rates to fall sharply in the near term, it may be more profitable to invest in Bandhan Govt Securities fund compared to, say, Tata Gilt Securities fund.
In contrast, if you expect bond yields to rise faster, you may lose less money in Tata Gilt Securities fund compared to Bandhan Govt Securities fund.
These two funds are used just for illustrations purposes.
(please click on the image to view better)
Table 2: Trailing returns of select gilt funds:
Before selecting a fund suitable for you, you better check the performance on a 1-year, 3-year and 5-year basis. You can ignore the 10-year trailing returns because fund managers keep changing always.
Fund manager rotation could be one of the major factors for the gilt fund performance.
Because if a fund manager correctly predicts the interest rate path, he / she can make a killing, as happened during the early part of the twenty-first century and around the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.
But the chances of predicting interest rates correctly are rare, because various ingredients go into the pot of the bond market.
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Table 3: Annual returns of select gilt funds:
A rough glance at the annual returns indicates the consistency of returns of a specific fund.
For example, Bandhan Govt Securities fund, DSP gilt fund and ICICI Prudential gilt fund have provided consistently higher calendar year returns in the 2018-2023 period. Incidentally, these funds have provided decent Sharpe ratio (risk-adjusted returns) also.
On the other hand, Franklin India Govt Securities fund, Nippon India ETF Nifty 8-13 year G-Sec LT fund and HSBC gilt fund have provided worse returns in the same period.
(please click on the image to view better)
5. Focusing on five funds
It's hard to choose from 15 gilt funds. As they say, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Winners keep changing all the time.
However, based on Sharpe ratio, consistency of returns, trailing returns of 3-year and 5-year periods, fund house reputation and long term track record, one can have a look at the following five gilt funds:
1. Bandhan Government Securities Fund - Investment Plan - Direct Plan
Its latest NAV is Rs 34.06, its asset size is Rs 1,660 crore and its 3-year Sharpe ratio is 0.35.
2. DSP Gilt Fund - Direct Plan
Its latest NAV is Rs 91.10, its asset size is Rs 750 crore and its 3-year Sharpe ratio is 0.60. Please beware its fund manager is at the helm for less than one year.
3. ICICI Prudential Gilt Fund - Direct Plan
Its
latest NAV is Rs 98.81, its asset size is Rs 4,860 crore and its 3-year
Sharpe ratio is 0.71. It may be noted their fund managers are at the helm for less than three months.
Its previous fund manager Rahul Goswami left the ICICI MF and joined Franklin India MF in Aug2023.
4. Kotak Gilt Investment - Direct Plan
Its
latest NAV is Rs 97.92, its asset size is Rs 2,930 crore and its 3-year
Sharpe ratio is 0.58.
5. SBI Magnum Gilt Fund - Direct Plan
Its
latest NAV is Rs 62.63, its asset size is Rs 7,880 crore and its 3-year
Sharpe ratio is 0.70. Please beware their fund managers are at the helm for less than six months.
Other funds worth considering are:
1. Aditya Birla Sun Life Government Securities Fund - Direct Plan
2. Invesco India Gilt Fund - Direct Plan
3. Tata Gilt Securities Fund - Direct Plan
HDFC Gilt fund used to provide decent returns in the past, but for some reason the fund has not been doing well in the past two to three years.
Its fund manager, Anil Bamboli, is at the helm for more than 11 years and he is a veteran bond fund manger. Let us see whether the fund performance will improve in the next one year.
Funds to avoid at this point of time are:
1. Franklin India Government Securities Fund - Direct Plan
2. Nippon India ETF Nifty 8-13 yr G-Sec Long Term Gilt
6. Gilt funds and risks
As gilt funds invest mostly Government of India bonds, the default risk of gilt funds is very low and chances of losing money in a two-year or three-year period are rare.
As you know, the credit risk (default risk) or Government of India defaulting on their bonds is practically zero.
However, gilt funds bear one important risk, that is, interest rate risk. If interest rates go up sharply they are likely to lose money in the shorter period of a quarter or a year.
As mentioned above, government bond market is highly liquid and as such gilt funds are high liquid meaning investors can redeem their money in a matter of one or two trading days. Gilt funds bear minimal liquidity risk.
7. Do gilt funds make negative returns?
At times, gilt funds may give negative returns when interest rates shoot up unexpectedly.
For example, SBI Magnum gilt fund provided negative returns of - 2.40 percent, - 2.88 percent and - 1.04 for 1-month, 3-month and 1-year periods. This is just for illustration purposes and should not be construed as a recommendation or investment advice (screenshot below).
In the case of Franklin India Government Securities fund, the losses are much higher at - 3.28 percent, - 4.81 percent and - 5.73 percent for 1-month, 3-month and 1-year periods respectively (screenshot below).
8. Not suitable for UHNIs and HNIs
If you belong to the elite group of ultra high net worth individuals (UHNIs) or high net worth individuals (HNIs), gilt funds may not be suitable to you.
This is because you are subject to high income tax rates of more than 40 percent (for taxable income of above Rs 2 crore and / or Rs 5 crore). Your after-tax return from gilt funds will be very low as you have to shell out about 40 percent of the return as taxes.
The objective of any investment is investors want to postpone their current spending for a future date and they expect, to compensate for the current spending foregone, some decent after-tax returns that can beat inflation.
Over a long period, India's official inflation numbers are between 6 to 8 percent in a year. Unless, the expected pre-tax returns of UHNIs and HNIs are more than 13 or 14 percent in a year from gilt funds, they cannot earn decent post-tax returns that can beat the annual inflation.
To make matters worse, PM Modi government, in a blow to debt mutual fund investors, capriciously and arbitrarily withdrew indexation benefits to debt mutual funds (including gilt funds) since 01Apr2023 and removed the distinction between long-term and short-term capital gains on debt funds.
9. Indian bonds inclusion by global bond indices
Last
month, Bloomberg announced it would include India's fully accessible
route (FAR) bonds, which are part of Government of India bonds, in the
Bloomberg Emerging Market (EM) Local Currency Government Index and
related indices.
In September of last year, JP Morgan announced its decision to include Indian government bonds in their GBI-EM Global index.
The
decisions of Bloomberg and JP Morgan are positive for Indian government
bond market as this bond inclusion is expected to bring in more flows
into Indian government bond market by FPIs or foreign portfolio
investors.
However, FTSE Russell a few weeks ago announced its
decision not to include Indian bonds in its bond indices as Indian bonds
did not yet meet their eligibility criteria.
10. Bond market scenario
Once the Indian Parliamentary elections are completed, the next government in New Delhi may present its full budget by the end of June 2024 or at the start of July 2024.
Then, the picture of India's fiscal deficit and government borrowing programme will be much clearer. The bond inclusion by global bond indices is a positive factor. The consumer price inflation (CPI) for Mar2024 is at 4.85 percent giving relief to bond markets.
Indian monsoon is expected to be normal this year, as per estimates from Skymet Weather.
The trajectory of the monsoon and the geographical distribution of the rainfall is important for almost 50 percent of Indian population because their fortunes are susceptible to the vagaries of the monsoon.
During its last meeting on 05Apr2024, India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept the interest rates unchanged. India's fiscal deficit continues to be high.
There are some Geo-political tensions in the Middle East and then we have the Russia-Ukraine war continuing for more than two years. Houthi rebels in Yemen have been blocking container shipping in the Red Sea with their drone attacks after Israel invaded Gaza region of Palestine in Oct2023.
The drone
attacks on Russian oil refineries / assets by Ukraine have led to crude
oil prices remaining elevated in the past three months.
Since the
beginning of the year, Brent crude oil prices have gone up by 18 percent
and are now at USD 90 per barrel.
The Geo-political tensions and elevated crude oil prices are likely to keep Indian bond markets on tenterhooks. Another negative factor is the expectation that the US Federal Reserve may keep the interest rates higher for longer and may cut interest rates only one or two times by the end of 2024, against the earlier expectations of three rate cuts.
India 10-year G-Sec bond yield closed at 7.18 percent on Friday, 12Apr2024 (chart below). The yield hardened by 12 basis points since 01Apr2024, despite news of bond inclusion by global index providers.
Based on the factors mentioned above, it is expected that RBI may start reducing interest rates in the next two to three quarters; and it is likely this will translate into superior returns for gilt funds.
However, if crude oil prices shoot up above USD 100 per barrel and Geo-political tensions rise further in the Middle East or elsewhere, Indian bond yields may remain elevated putting into jeopardy the return expectations on gilt funds.
11. Investment Action and Summary
Investment decisions are about alternatives. There are a variety of financial instruments and products available to Indian investors.
Sophisticated Indian investors have started investing in foreign securities and foreign assets. They have the wherewithal to access the knowledge and insights available. Not all investors are so fortunate.
Indian stock markets are now at all-time highs and it may be a good idea to diversify some of their surplus money into gilt funds depending on their risk appetite, return expectations, asset allocation motives and personal circumstances.
This is not to suggest Indian stock market will not go up in the next two or three years. Financial markets are inherently volatile and highly unpredictable.
Sometimes, it's better to do portfolio rebalancing rather than indulging in pure speculation in a single asset class.
Gilt funds are suitable for investors in the lower income tax brackets. However, gilt funds returns can be volatile.
It's difficult to predict interest rate path, but it's better to have your own view on the future direction of the interest rates before you start investing in gilt funds.
If investors expect interest rates to fall, they can consider investing in gilt funds mentioned in section 5 above keeping in mind the risks of gilt funds and your return expectations.
It may not be a good idea to invest in more than two gilt funds. If you are comfortable, you can just invest in one fund of your choice.
It is not that you need to restrict yourself to five funds mentioned in Section 5 above; you can also consider other worthy funds mentioned above depending on your risk appetite, return expectations, time horizon, tax considerations and your unique circumstances.
As mentioned above, this blog is written for educational purposes only and opinion (s) expressed here should not be construed as investment advice or recommendation.
Investors should consult their own financial advisors before considering the funds mentioned here.
The author is an investment professional and it is safe to assume he has a vested interest in products / instruments mentioned above.
