Axis Bluechip Fund: Can this be used to beat Nifty?

Axis Bluechip Fund has had an impressive track record. Can this be used as an active large cap fund to beat Nifty at lower risk? Let us find out. This question assumes importance because active large cap funds had struggled to beat large cap benchmarks well before SEBI mandated that 80% of their portfolio consist of large cap stocks.

See this study, for example, Only Five Large Cap funds have comfortably beat Nifty 100! Even among these five, it is debatable how many were pure large cap funds since inception. The definition of what a large cap stock is has always been the same: it’s market capitalization should be within the top 100 of all stocks listed at the NSE (or BSE). However, mutual funds had considerable freedom in picking stocks outside of the top 100, and that is (was?) a key reason for outperformance against the Nifty or the Sensex.

Going forward, assuming fund houses respect SEBI rules, beating Nifty will be tough for large cap funds and hence the question about Axis Bluechip fund assumes importance. This is a case where the historical nature of the fund is more important than its risk or reward profile. So the only reliable way to find out is to dig through Axis fund factsheets

Axis Bluechip Fund: Interesting facts

• Launched in Jan 2010 as “Axis Equity Fund” merely as an open-ended growth scheme. From June 2017 it was labelled as a large cap scheme.
• It operated as a large and midcap fund from inception to October 2017.
• It became Axis Bluechip Fund from May 2018
• The fund appears to have held ICIC, HDFC bank from inception (I did not check every factsheet)

Axis Bluechip Fund vs Nifty 50 TRI

The key finding here is that Axis Bluechip is effectively from Nov 2017 only. This is the performance against Nifty in that period.

Not exactly spectacular and not terrible either.  The performance in the last year is not a great sight, but it has managed a recovery in the previous three months.

The drop in the outperformance of the fund over 1615 3-year data points can be seen below.

Therefore going forward, it would only be impossible to assume Axis Bluechip Fund will be able to beat Nifty 50 TRI over any given period. There is not enough evidence. New investors wanting a solid large cap based equity portfolio should consider either hybrid funds. Please consult these articles to understand why:

• Why Aggressive Hybrid (balanced) Mutual Funds score over diversified funds
• Balanced Advantage vs Aggressive Hybrid Funds: When to use what
• 11 aggressive hybrid (balanced) mutual funds that have beat Nifty 100!!
• Using Balanced Mutual Funds As The Core Equity Portfolio Holding

You can consider building your portfolio with My Handpicked Mutual Funds July 2019 (PlumbLine) or shortlist your own funds with the Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener July 2019

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