The Best Performing Mutual Funds Of FY19
Here are the best performers among large-, multi- and small-cap funds with at least Rs 1,000-crore assets in 2018-19.
India’s equity benchmarks recovered from the volatility caused by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd.’s defaults to end the financial year 2018-19 higher. That rebound was largely driven by large-cap stocks.
While equity mutual funds saw inflows slow down, net investments remained positive every month till February—data for March is still not out. And despite the poor run by small caps, multi-cap funds surprised investors with gains.
Here are the best performers among large-, multi- and small-cap funds with at least Rs 1,000-crore assets in 2018-19:
Equity Large-Cap Funds
Top three schemes on an average returned 14 percent gains compared with an average return of 12 percent by the Nifty 50 Index and the Nifty 100 Index in FY19.
HDFC Top 100 and Reliance Large Cap Fund were the best performers across different time periods.
HDFC Top 100
- Investments by sectors: Banking (30.7 percent weight), petroleum products (11.96 percent) and software (4.88 percent)
- Top holdings: Reliance Industries Ltd. (8.3 percent weight), ICICI Bank Ltd. (8.35 percent) and Infosys Ltd. (7.8 percent).
Reliance Large Cap Fund
- Top sectoral holdings: Banking (30 percent weight), pharmaceuticals (11 percent) and capital goods (7 percent).
- Top stock holdings: State Bank of India (8.97 percent weight), Axis Bank Ltd. (7.28 percent) and HDFC Bank Ltd. (5.9 percent).
Multi-Cap Funds
Average returns of the top three multi-cap funds was in the range of 11-14 percent, beating NSE 500 Index and NSE 200 Index’s returns of 8 percent each.
Mirae Assets India Equity Fund performed consistently across one, three and five years.
- Top sectoral holdings: Banking (more than 18 percent).
- Top stock holdings: HDFC Bank Ltd. ( 5.9 percent), ICICI Bank (4.94 percent), Axis Bank Ltd. (4.4 percent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. (2.74 percent).
Small-Cap Funds
Liquidity squeeze after the IL&FS crisis led to small-cap rout as the index fell 16 percent in 2018-19. HDFC Small-Cap Fund was the only sectoral fund that just managed to return gains. On an average, the top three schemes lost 6 percent, faring better than the 16 percent decline in Nifty Smallcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 250 indices.
HDFC Small Cap Fund-Direct Plan
- Top sectoral holdings: Industrials (15 percent weight), software (10.5 percent) and auto ancillaries (7.7 percent).
- Top stock holdings: NIIT Technologies Ltd. (3.9 percent), Sonata Software Ltd. (3.74 percent) and Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. (3.65 percent).
- The scheme has 88 percent in small stocks and more than 8 percent holding in money-market instruments, and the rest is held as cash.