Be prepared for positive surprises' is the lesson A Balasubramanian, chief executive officer, Birla SunLife Mutual Fund, wants investors to learn from 2014.

And, for good reason. It's seldom that most retail investors, whether in debt or equity, have ended a year with a smile.

Whether risk-averse, risk-neutral or a risk taker, making money wasn't tough unless you had only gold in your portfolio or dabbled in global market funds indiscriminately.

Except gold funds which returned a negative 6.1 per cent, all other funds, whether debt or equity, gave positive returns for the first time in five years.

The best part is that even in terms of real rate of return - adjusted for the consumer price index - things were really good.

Except international funds and gold funds, all other schemes beat the average rate of consumer inflation of 7.4 per cent in 2014.

src:sify.com