MUTUAL FUNDS · DATA FROM AMFI's PUBLISHED NAVs
Mutual funds in India, measured rather than marketed
Fund marketing sells star ratings and past returns; fund outcomes are decided by costs, structure and time. This section publishes the measurable part — computed from AMFI's daily NAV file, with the method stated on every page — and explains the machinery in plain language. No "best funds to buy" lists: descriptive data and education, in the same register as the rest of Gale.
Start with how mutual funds actually work
- What is a mutual fund? — units, NAV, and the three-tier structure that guards your money.
- Types of mutual funds — every SEBI category, what each holds, and the risk it carries.
- NAV, explained properly — what it measures, and why a low NAV is not a bargain.
- Expense ratio & exit load — the costs that quietly decide long-run returns.
- Direct vs regular plans — the same fund at two prices, and what the gap compounds to.
- ETF vs mutual fund — two wrappers around the same index, and where each one costs more.
- XIRR explained — the only return number that survives a stream of instalments.
What actually decides a fund's outcome
Three things, and star ratings are none of them. Cost is the most certain: an expense ratio is charged whether the fund performs or not, deducted inside the NAV where you never see it as a line item. Structure decides what you are exposed to — an index fund, a credit-risk debt fund and a small-cap fund can all sit in the same portfolio while behaving nothing alike in the same month. Time decides whether the first two compound in your favour or against you.
Past return, the number every fund page leads with, is the least stable of the four. It is useful for describing what happened; it carries little information about what a fund will do next. That is why the data pages here state their method and their limits, and why the Nifty 50 comparison is framed as what costs did to identical portfolios rather than as a ranking to act on.
Where the data comes from
Every NAV on this site comes from AMFI's daily published file — the industry's own official record, updated each business evening. Returns are computed here from those NAVs, not reproduced from a distributor's marketing sheet, and every page shows the data date it was built from. When the daily file stops arriving, the pages hide themselves rather than serve yesterday's numbers as though they were today's.
For planning questions — how much to invest each month, tax-saving funds, withdrawal strategies in retirement — our sister site WealthStem covers the personal-finance side. This section stays on the fund data itself.
Mutual fund basics
What is a mutual fund?
A mutual fund pools money from many investors and buys a portfolio of securities on their behalf, run by an asset management company under SEBI regulation. You own units; the unit price is the NAV, published every business day.
What is an index fund?
A mutual fund that simply holds the stocks of an index — like the Nifty 50 — in the same weights, aiming to match its return rather than beat it. Costs are low because nothing is being predicted; the comparison that matters is expense ratio and how closely the fund tracks.
What is NAV?
Net Asset Value — the per-unit value of everything the fund holds, computed daily. A higher NAV does not mean an expensive fund and a lower NAV does not mean a bargain; it is simply the unit price, and returns depend on percentage change, not the level.
Direct or regular plan?
The same fund is sold in two plans: direct (you invest without a distributor, lower expense ratio) and regular (a distributor is paid from your money via a higher expense ratio). For a self-directed investor the direct plan of the same fund always compounds better.
What is the difference between a mutual fund and an ETF?
Both can hold the same portfolio. A mutual fund is bought and sold at the day’s NAV directly with the fund house, needs no demat account and supports automated instalments. An ETF trades on the exchange like a share, requires a demat account, and its market price can drift from the value of what it holds when trading is thin.
How are mutual fund returns measured?
Three different numbers answer three different questions. Absolute return is the total percentage change. CAGR annualises a single investment held over a period. XIRR is the one that handles a stream of dated instalments and withdrawals, which is why it is the honest number for anyone investing monthly.