Yes, it is always better to take help/suggestion of a Financial Advisor/MF Agent. He/she will suggest you the best of MF as per your investment capacity, risk profile and tenure.
Secondly, the commission to MF Agent is not paid by you, the MF Company pays him. (no doubt it is taken from your units by the MF Company, it is negligible)
By going through a MF Agent, you are saving your time and effort of selecting a Fund which you want, furthermore, there is no guarantee that whatever Fund you have selected will do good in future or is the best. So, better consult a MF Agent before investing.
Yes, its a long procedure but easy process to find out the good MF.
Moneycontrol will help to find the best MF… select your favorite MF randomly and check the investment they done on various companies…it will be shown in Moneycontrol…check the companies repo in which MF invest… almost every MF put your money to various sectors of top class companies…Like MF buy stock of Airtel for telecommunication, motherson Sumi for electrical , hdfc/axis for bank and many more…see where your MF amount is going to invest…if major stocks are good enough, then that MF is good enough.
I recommend to first analyze the Mid Cap and Large Cap before investing.It will give you a brief overview of where it will be going in near future…
If you are confused, then GOLD is the best alternative for investment since last 1000yrs of mankind on earth…Gold and Silver are Brothers…