The stock market has disappointed investors this year. The markets tumbled as myriad factors responsible for their negative performance overrode most conditions propelling market movement. Nifty50 has fallen 7.8 per cent to date in 2022. In the past six months, most mutual funds have staggered to move upwards while some moved sideways to at least prevent the returns from falling too steep.
A comparison of equity mutual funds with Nifty50 performance reveals how some funds went that extra mile to protect their investors’ interests as these churned out stocks to yield better returns than the stock market indices.
A cursory look at some large-cap mutual funds’ performance vis-à-vis the Nifty 50 index returns that fell 7.8 per cent in the past six months reveals
| Name of the large-cap fund | Returns in the past six months (in %) | Returns earned over and above Nifty 50 Index (in %) |
| HDFC Top 100 Fund | -3.74 | 4.06 |
| Nippon India Large Cap Fund | -5.03 | 2.77 |
| ICICI Prudential Blue Chip Fund | -6.07 | 1.73 |
| Baroda BNP Paribas Large Cap Fund | -6.79 | 1.01 |
| SBI Blue Chip Fund | -7.13 | 0.67 |
| Sundaram Large Cap Fund | -7.66 | 0.14 |
A cursory look at some mid-cap mutual funds’ performance vis-à-vis the Nifty 50 index returns that fell 7.8 per cent in the past six months reveals
| Name of the mid-cap fund | Returns in the past six months (in %) | Returns earned over and above Nifty 50 Index (in %) |
| Quant Mid Cap Fund | -3.55 | 4.25 |
| Motilal Oswal Midcap 30 Fund | -6.51 | 1.29 |
| HDFC Mid-Cap Opportunities Fund | -7.20 | 0.60 |
A cursory look at some small-cap mutual funds’ performance vis-à-vis the Nifty 50 index returns that fell 7.8 per cent in the past six months reveals
| Name of the small-cap fund | Returns in the past six months (in %) | Returns earned over and above Nifty 50 Index (in %) |
| ICICI Prudential Smallcap Fund | -5.68 | 2.12 |
| Canara Robeco Small Cap Fund | -6.50 | 1.3 |
| Axis Small Cap Fund | -6.84 | 0.96 |
Some sectoral funds have indeed exceeded Nifty 50 as these fund houses pooled investors’ money to park in businesses synonymous with a particular theme or sector. The returns of these funds over the past six months when compared to the Nifty 50 Index performance
| Name of the sector fund | Returns in the past six months (in %) | Returns earned over and above Nifty 50 Index (in %) |
| UTI Transportation and Logistics Fund - Growth | 0.24 | 8.04 |
| SBI Infrastructure Fund – Growth | -7.58 | 0.22 |
| SBI PSU Fund - Growth | -7.75 | 0.05 |
Investing in tax-saver funds is not only a great way to save on taxes, but also earn returns in sync with or more than the stock market.
| Name of the tax-saver fund | Returns in the past six months (in %) | Returns earned over and above Nifty 50 Index (in %) |
| HDFC Taxsaver – Growth | -6.40 | 1.40 |
How do these figures help you to invest?
You must have heard many investors saying, “When everything is down, how do you expect a mutual fund to be up?” While this logic may hold ground to some extent, presenting this analogy to justify continued and prolonged losses may hamper investors’ outlook and faith in equity fund investments.
Though the current geopolitical situation offers very little hope to investors relying on the stock market movement to build their corpus, a lot depends on how fund managers allocate, re-allocate and rebalance the funds they are assigned. With some funds still managing to keep their returns positive or better than what we see in the Nifty 50 index, investors can gauge the fund quality and decide their investments accordingly.
