Last Updated on March 5, 2019

Here are 18 mutual funds with better than index return & lower than index risk over the last 1,2,3,4 and 5 years! I have calculated this with trailing returns and trailing standard deviation (a measure of volatility) using the freefincal equity mutual fund consistency screener. This is an alternative way of short-listing mutual funds. However, it may not be as rigorous as this shortlist made with rolling returns and downside protection: List of Equity Mutual Funds with most consistent performance (Feb 2019).

How the list was prepared

1. Compute fund return and index return over the last 1,2,3,4 and 5 years
2. Compute fund and index standard deviation over the last 1,2,3,4 and 5 years
3. Find fund return minus index return over each of these periods
4. Fund fund standard deviation minus index standard deviation over each of these periods
5. Plot (fund return minus index return) in the vertical axis versus (fund standard deviation minus index standard deviation) in the vertical axis
6. This will provide four sections as shown below and we shortlist funds that fall in the upper left quadrant (yellow text) to choose funds with lower than index risk and higher than index returns over 1,2,3,4 and 5 years

Relative Risk vs Reward of Mutual Funds: three years

We consider 268 equity mutual funds. To get a full list of the funds and the benchmarks used, consult the freefincal equity mutual fund consistency screener.

We shortlist funds within the white rectangle over 1,2,3,4 and 5 years.

Relative Risk vs Reward of Mutual Funds: five years

List of 18 mutual funds with better than index return & lower than index risk!

So these are funds that were always found in the upper left quadrant.Notice the prominent absence of large cap funds and thinly populated other categories! Only Small cap funds are well represented perhaps because it is easy to stay less volatile than the index and that alone can beat the index during downturns.

How to use this information

This is yet another way to shortlist mutual funds – another blind man touching the elephant. They are certainly good funds. Are they consistently good funds? To answer this, I will find a way to including rolling returns and risk study into this. The shortlist should be used only if you understand how it was calculated and how it differs from downside protection. For the moment, the non-small cap funds in this list can look at more closely by readers. Let me know your thoughts on this method -which is well known by analysts, you can get this information for each fund at Morningstar India. From the next edition of the freefincal screener, the full data will be available each month.

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About the Author M. Pattabiraman is the co-author of two books: You can be rich too with goal based investing and Gamechanger. “Pattu” as he is popularly known, publishes unbiased, promotion-free research, analysis and holistic money management advice. Freefincal serves more than one million readers a year with numbers based analysis on topical issues and has more than a 100 free calculators on different aspects of insurance and investment analysis, including a robo advisory template for use by beginners. Contact information: freefincal {at} Gmail {dot} com He conducts free money management sessions for corporates (see details below). Previous engagements include World Bank, RBI, BHEL, Asian Paints.

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