In the Indian context, retail investors have the following broad variety of asset classes to choose from, namely: stocks, debt, and bullion, which in turn house a host of sub-groups such as Mutual Funds (MFs) to portfolio management services (PMS) and Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) to gold and fixed deposits. And then there's real estate. However, the participation of retail investors is on the rise across assets class, thanks to rising income levels, a start-up-led wealth generation (Sachin Bansal subscribing to Altico’s NCD), increasing returns of NRI’s. For instance, according to Prime Database, the shareholding of retail investors in 1,605 listed companies hit an 11-year high of 7.01 per cent during the last year.