Monthly Income Plans (MIPs) have witnessed little movement (up or down) over the last month.

MIPs were launched with much fanfare a few months ago. MIPs are designed with the explicit objective of giving a regular return (in the form of an income) to investors. The periodicity of returns depends upon the option chosen (monthly, quarterly and half-yearly) by the investor.

Open-ended, MIP Schemes	NAV(Rs)	Last week	Last month	Last year	Inception
K P MIP(Gr)	10.6	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%	13.3%
Sun F&C Monthly Inc. (Gr)	10.6	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	3.5%
Pru ICICI MIP (Cum)	10.6	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	11.6%
Reliance Mthly Inc(Gr)	10.7	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	12.9%
MIP 2000 (III)(Cum)	9.4	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Alliance Monthly Inc.(Gr)	13.2	0.0%	-0.8%	3.2%	16.9%
Birla MIP Plan C (Gr)	10.3	0.0%	-0.8%	0.0%	7.8%
Templeton MIP (Gr)	10.8	0.0%	-0.9%	7.4%	7.2%

MIPs have close to 85% of their assets in fixed income instruments, with equities accounting for the balance. The interest rate cut announced in the Union Budget 2002, followed by the Bank Rate cut announced by the RBI, led to a decline in bond yields (i.e. bond prices were up), thereby boosting the fixed income portion of MIPs. However, as equity markets have witnessed a freefall, the equity portion of MIPs has witnessed some erosion and has robbed MIPs of post-budget fixed-income gains.

MIPs are now lowering their equity exposure in favour of fixed income instruments or even cash. However, this may affect their ability to pay regular dividend as they rely heavily on their equity component for this. Consequently some MIPs have progressively lowered their dividend payouts.

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