For a beginner which fund is suitable to start SIP for retirement

As a beginner on mutual fund investing, you should first assess how much risk you can take with your investment and what is the investment horizon. Since you know the investment horizon, you only need to decide how much risk you can take with your SIP investments.

For example - if your risk profile is moderate you can invest balance funds. However, if you can take even higher risk, you can invest in large cap funds or diversified equity funds. For the highest risk takers, however, mid & small cap funds could be the best choice for the long term.

As we do not know your risk profile, we are assuming you can take moderate to moderately high risk as your investment horizon is 15+ years. In that case, you can invest in balanced funds and large cap equity funds.

You can expect around 12% return on balanced funds. Amongst balanced funds, ICICI Prudential Balanced Fund, L&T India Prudence Fund, SBI Balanced Fund and DSP BlackRock Balanced Funds could be good choices. Please see a comprehensive list here https://www.advisorkhoj.com/mutual-funds...

From large cap funds you can expect 13-14% return over long investment period. Amongst large cap funds, you can select from SBI Bluechip Fund, DSP BlackRock Focus 25 Fund, Birla Sun Life Top 100 Fund etc. Please see the comprehensive list here https://www.advisorkhoj.com/mutual-funds...

With regards to your future retirement corpus value, you can expect Rs 1.50 Crores after 15 years on SIP of Rs 25,000 per month. This is based on assumption of annual 13.50% return on your SIPs

One more thing, out of this 25,000 per month, you can invest Rs 12,500 (i.e. 150,000 per annum maximum) in ELSS mutual funds to save taxes under section 80C of The Income Tax Act 1961. Amongst ELSS, you can choose from DSP BlackRock Tax Saver Fund, ICICI Prudential Long Term and Birla Sun Life Tax Relief 96 Funds.

Hope the above helps. Thanks for writing to Advisorkhoj.