Passive funds have resumed gaining ground in the mutual fund (MF) industry after a slowdown in 2024, with their share of assets under management (AUM) reaching an all-time high in 2025. The surge has been driven largely by robust inflows into gold and silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Diversification is the key to achieve optimal risk-adjusted returns. Often, an investor is confused whilst deciding on the number of mutual funds you should consider holding in your portfolio.
Benchmark indices today are where they were five years back. But that has not been a deterrent for these equity funds, which topped their respective categories.
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Retail investors' equity portfolios have significantly underperformed benchmark indices over the past 16 to 18 months.
The 44-player industry logged assets under management of Rs 26.33 lakh crore in October-end, as compared to Rs 27.04 lakh crore by November end, representing a growth of 3 per cent. Among debt-oriented schemes, overnight funds received flows worth about Rs 20,650 crore, the highest among the fixed-income segment last month.
'Long-short SIFs are designed for seasoned, high-risk, high-reward investors, who understand market volatility.'
'First-time or conservative investors should avoid narrow sectoral funds.'
Many get confused between investing in equities and equity mutual funds. They think equity funds are the same as equities or stocks
Largecap equities are less volatile than mid- and smallcap stocks, making them suitable for risk-averse investors.
Flexicap fund performance depends heavily on the fund manager's decisions.
Ask rediffGURU and tax expert Mihir Tanna your income tax-related questions.
'A subscriber will know exactly how much of his money is in debt and how much in equity.'
Fund managers advise conservative investors to cap midcap exposure at 10 to 15 per cent of their equity portfolio.
The MF Industry had a cash-rich 2014 as it crossed the Rs 3 trillion mark.
This is an equity diversified fund and investors enjoy both the benefits of capital appreciation, as well as tax benefits.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) could soon issue interim orders imposing a market ban on the two former fund managers of Axis Mutual Fund (MF) for suspected front-running of trades, said people with knowledge of the development. "The market regulator has gathered prima facie evidence that demonstrates that the duo has violated the integrity of the market. "While a detailed investigation is still pending in the matter, Sebi could take action under Section 11 (4) to prevent further harm to the investors and the securities market," said a source.
Overlap refers to the same stocks appearing across fund portfolios.
Ramalingam Kalirajan explains the pros and cons of both investment types.
Home loan interest rates are likely to increase in the next six months. Should this be a cause enough for you to prepay your home loan?
Of course, NOT! Here's why. And here's how you can increase your Rs 1 crore retirement corpus.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is discussing with mutual funds (MFs) a proposal on introducing new total expense ratio (TER) slabs linked to the total equity and debt assets by replacing the current ones that are linked to assets of an individual scheme. Senior MF executives confirmed that Sebi had held discussions on this matter with AMCs. Such a change is expected to lead to a lower TER cap for bigger asset management companies (AMCs).
'Having a separate healthcare corpus is extremely important even for those already covered by health insurance.'
Conservative investors seeking equity-like tax benefits with low risk may go for them.
India's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market is projected to maintain an annual run-rate of approximately $200 billion, evenly split between domestic, inbound, and outbound transactions, despite global geopolitical turbulence, according to Rajesh Singhi, global co-head, M&A Advisory, Standard Chartered Bank.
Analysts are increasingly optimistic about India's capital markets, with HDFC AMC, CAMS, and KFin Technologies identified as top investment picks. This optimism stems from a structural shift in household savings towards financial instruments and an expected multi-year earnings expansion for market infrastructure providers and asset management companies.
Equity mutual funds attracted Rs 6,120 crore in August, the lowest level in 10 months, amid a volatile stock market environment. This was the 18th straight month of inflows in equity mutual funds but the pace of inflow has been declining over the past few months. The net inflows in August were lower compared to Rs 8,898 crore in July, Rs 15,495 crore seen in June, Rs 18,529 crore in May and Rs 15,890 crore in April, according to data released by Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) on Friday.
Ask rediffGURU and PF expert Nitin Narkhede your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
Fund managers are divided on the prospects for beaten-down information technology (IT) stocks, reflected in the wide variance in equity mutual funds' (MFs) sector exposure. An analysis by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows that while six large fund houses were overweight the sector relative to its weight in the Nifty 200 index, five were underweight as of October 2025. UTI MF had the highest exposure at 17.8 per cent, while SBI MF sat at the bottom with 5 per cent.
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Inflows into equity mutual fund (MF) schemes declined for the third month in a row in March even though the equity market recovered sharply. Equity MF schemes raked in a net Rs 25,082 crore in March, down 14 per cent from February.
Mutual fund houses do have several challenges ahead to win more investors.
Driven by addition in equity fund folios, mutual fund houses have registered a rise of over 3.5 lakh investor accounts in the first eight months of the ongoing 2014-15 fiscal.
'You set up your SIPs and you do not touch them. Not during COVID, not during a war scare, not when your neighbour tells you the market is finished. You let the noise pass over you.' 'The beauty of this approach is that it does not require courage or conviction in the moment. It just requires inertia -- keep the SIP running and do not look at your portfolio too often.'
Investors having a moderate-risk profile can use these funds in their retirement portfolios.
Equity mutual funds (MFs) capped a strong 2024 with near-record inflows in December. With net inflows of Rs 41,156 crore in December, the 2024 tally surged to Rs 3.9 trillion, up 144 per cent compared to 2023. The December tally, which was only slightly short of the record-high inflows of Rs 41,887 crore achieved in October 2024, was fuelled by record inflows of Rs 9,761 crore into small-cap and mid-cap funds.
The time is ripe for a merger of eight fund houses indirectly owned and controlled by the central government, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
