While selecting a mutual fund to invest..should i mention the period of time that i am going to invest i.e 5 years...? What if i want to continue after 5 years..can i extend the that particular fund..?
You can renew your SIP even after initial subscription period, say initially you have subscribed SIP for an year, you can renew your subscription after year. You can invest as long as you want.
Say i want to invest 3000 per month in mutual fund on monthly basis..can i invest in that fund with a starting money of 50,000 and pay 3000 to that fund monthly..
You can do that, assuming you are talking about lumpsum investment.
is there a way i could invest in diversified mutual funds of different companies directly through a DMAT provider so that could maintain a portfolio of all the funds i am investing in without approaching each of those providers individually..??
You do not need DMAT provider for investing into mutual funds.
You can invest in diversified mutual funds through brokers(or banks who act as broker), but you may lose on entry load which is usually 2.5%. If you invest directly with AMC, entry load is 0%.
lastly ,if i select equity shares of few companies my self and invest in them same way (monthly 3000) like in mutual funds.. after given period of time (5 years) which would you thinks will give you better returns.
If you have time to investigate, and if you know about equity market you may be better of directly investing in shares. It is lot safer bet to invest in mutual funds than direct dealing of shares, as there is some one with lots of experience with more specialist knowledge working for you and managing mutual fund. If you are looking for long term, pick some mutual funds and start investing. If you are looking for short term gains and have enough knowledge about equity market, go for shares investment.