In this post, I discuss why it is important for investors to not take mutual fund market cap classifications seriously. In particular, your “large cap fund” is probably either a multi-cap fund all the time or now and then. The notion of what is a giant cap, large cap, mid-cap, small-cap or micro-cap stock is not…

Use this tool to calculate the annualized return (XIRR) of your mutual fund SIPs month by month since the date you started it and compare its performance with its benchmark. This now offers a range of about 70+ benchmarks from the BSE and NSE to compare mutual fund performance. What is XIRR? When you invest…

“Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy”. These words by Sandeep keep ringing in my head all through the day. Two days ago I was chatting with a few friends on FB. I stepped out for a bit, and came back to find my less than 2-year old laptop screen say, “ disk not found”. A few…

Update: The scenarios mentioned in this article are no longer applicable as per our understanding from 1st Oct 2024. For details see: New PPF rules apply only to irregular accounts! The maximum amount per pan number is 1.50 Lakhs, including the minor accounts from 1st Oct 2024. If you have 3 PPF accounts (self, spouse, and minor)…

Use this free Mutual Fund Portfolio Overlap Tool to compare five mutual funds and find out the common stocks and percentage portfolio overlap. Update April 2022: This tool is now available on Google Sheets. How to use the mutual fund portfolio overlap comparison tool? If you are trying to build a diversified mutual fund portfolio…

A so -called bull market reveals interesting behavioural traits. The worry about the dip in performance of ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund is part fact and part behavioural (in my opinion, of course). A look at the performance of this fund. One feeling a bull market brings about is, “why is my fund alone not…

Suppose my current annualised return from an equity mutual fund is 25% and my expectation is only 12%, can I book the excess return (13%) as profit into a safe investment? What if I do this from time to time? Reader Prakash Bala wanted me to create a tool for this and in this post, I…

Axis Dynamic Equity Fund is yet another dynamic equity fund that proposes to tactically change its asset allocation to reduce risk (with no guarantee that the backtesting will work in the future). When Anish Mohan sent me the funds KIM*, his description piqued my interest to look deeper. Here is a description of its strategy….

So you think you have become financial literate by starting equity mutual fund SIPs assuming that they will beat inflation in the “long run”? Don’t get too comfortable with equity. Don’t assume those fairytale returns from DSP nanocap fund will last. This is how a real market crash “feels” like. Preparing for a presentation can be…

Use this Excel sheet to automatically calculate rolling upside capture, downside capture and rolling returns for equity mutual funds by comparing them with 72 BSE/NSE Indices. While the rolling returns provide a consistency measure for overall reward (return), the upside/downside captures provide a consistency measure for outperformance during up-market periods and protection during down-market periods…

Readers may be aware that I often use rolling returns, where anualized return is calculated between two dates and the calculation dates are shifted to the next possible business day.  I have developed a rolling downside and upside capture calculator and before publishing it, would like to discuss what they are in simple terms. A…

Have you not read the mutual fund past performance disclaimer? Then how can we select mutual funds using past performance alone? In this post, I discuss this question asked by Swati Joshi.  It is no secret many in the financial services dislike me. So their favorite approach to criticism is to claim that my “fund…

Here are two simple mutual fund screeners to automatically create a shortlist from a chosen mutual fund category.  I have combined the monthly screener data – 3,5,7 year performance consistency and 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11Y SIP and lump sum data to create this screener. Do give this a go and let me know what you think. Why Did…