Income funds are a type of debt mutual fund that attempts to provide a stable rate of returns in all market scenarios through active portfolio management. While it is a debt fund, income funds also run the risk of generating negative returns as many scenarios could play out – such as – interest rates may drop drastically, resulting in a drop of the underlying bond prices. It’s even possible that the active fund manager could pick lower-rated instruments that could offer potentially higher returns.

Through active and ‘dynamic’ portfolio management, dynamic bond funds seek to maximize the returns to investors by switching up the investment portfolio depending on market conditions and fluctuations.

The entire point of investing in a liquid fund is to maintain a high degree of liquidity (i.e. convertibility to cash/cash value) in the investment. Securities and instruments that are invested in by liquid fund schemes have a maximum maturity period of 91 days. Usually, only very highly-rated instruments are invested in, through liquid funds. The benefit of these funds is primarily felt by those investors who have surplus funds to park in an income generating investment. The reason these are preferred is that they give higher returns than savings accounts and attempt to provide a similar level of liquidity.

These funds are the riskier type of debt mutual funds. They undertake calculated risks like investing in lower-rated instruments to generate potentially higher returns. Anticipating a rise in ratings of papers through market analysis, credit opportunities fund managers invest in instruments rated under even “AA”, in the hope that they will rise to become higher-rated over time, and thus, increase in value.

These schemes invest primarily in government-issued securities which carry a very low level of risk and are generally rated quite high (as the default rate is very low and sometimes non-existent). What these schemes lack in risk-taking ability, they more than make up for, in security.

 Fixed maturity plans can be closely likened to fixed deposits. These schemes have a mandatory lock-in period that varies depending on the scheme chosen. The investment must be done once, during the initial offer period, after which further investments cannot be made in this scheme. The way in which it differs from FDs is that the returns are not guaranteed, but if they do generate positive returns, they will be most likely higher than any bank FD scheme.