Barring May and June when no new fund mutual funds were allowed to be launched because of SEBI’s (Securities Exchange Board of India) ban – a string of schemes have been launched across categories through-out the year.
In the entire 2022, a total of 155 new mutual funds (until Nov 30) have been launched. This includes 75 index mutual funds, 35 other exchange traded funds (ETFs), 8 fund of funds (FOFs) investing overseas, 11 debt funds and 8 sectoral/ thematic funds.
Some investment advisors believe the massive increase in popularity of index funds can be attributed to their simplicity and lower cost.
“The last couple of years have seen a stupendous rise in the number of new investors, among whom a lot of them are investing in index funds owing to their simplicity and lower cost. The data speak for themselves, and what we are seeing currently is a great trend wherein the retail investor is continuing to or say bring in fresh investments in the equity markets in a systematic way with long term objective,” says Abhishek Dev, Co-founder and CEO of Epsilon Money Mart.
Interestingly, new mutual funds launched in other categories are few and far between. For example, there were five flexi cap funds, one arbitrage, one large cap fund, three mid-caps, two multi caps, one hybrid, one focussed, two dynamic asset allocation funds, one retirement fund and one equity linked savings scheme (ELSS) fund.
| Month | No. of schemes launched |
| January | 13 |
| February | 18 |
| March | 23 |
| April | 3 |
| July | 3 |
| August | 33 |
| September | 17 |
| October | 28 |
| November | 17 |
(Source: AMFI, no new mutual fund was launched in May and June)
Month-wise distribution
The largest number of mutual funds i.e., 33 were launched in August which include 9 debt funds, one mid cap, one focussed, two flexi cap, one dynamic asset allocation fund, one arbitrage, seven index funds and 10 exchange traded funds (ETFs).
The second largest number of funds (28) were launched in October. These included 21 index funds, two ETFs, 2 sectoral/ thematic, one multi cap and one debt fund.
Following this, 23 new fund schemes were launched in March which included 15 index funds, 5 ETFs, one fund of funds investing in overseas funds, one hybrid and one multi cap fund.
Aside from this, 13 new fund offers were made in January, 18 in February, 17 in September and17 in November.
It is vital to mention that no new fund schemes were launched in May and June and only three were launched in the month of July.
