Mutual funds: 78 per cent of equity schemes give negative returns

Close to 78% of the total 347 equity mutual fund schemes have registered negative returns during the last one year, with over 106 schemes giving negative returns of more than 10%. A number of the worst-performing funds are infra sector funds with HSBC Infrastructure Fund reporting a negative return of 35.83%, data from Value Research shows.

PSU funds have also performed poorly as have small cap funds in the last one year. The infrastructure sector saw its category average return at a negative 18.62%, with all the 23 schemes reporting negative returns. Over the past year the Nifty Small Cap index has fallen by more than 28.3% while the Nifty Mid Cap index has lost 12%. All the 36 mid and small cap equity schemes have given negative returns in the last one year.

The returns are as on October 29, 2018. However if we look at the data of equity schemes for the two year and three years period then out of total 347 schemes, only 8.65% and 2.01% of the them have given negative returns.

In the last one year, SBI PSU Fund, HDFC Infrastructure Funds, IDFC Infrastructure Fund and Sundaram Small Cap Fund are among the worst-performing equity schemes over the past year having lost anywhere between 26% and 30%. Several large cap funds such as JM Core 11 Fund, IDBI India and Top 100 Equity fund were laggards among large-cap category giving negative returns in the range of 12.13% and 11.59%, for instance — have done badly

In the mid-cap segment, schemes such as BNP Paribas Midcap Fund and SBI Magnum Midcap Fund have dipped by 19.90% and 16.35% respectively in the last one year. The average returns of Midcap funds is -10.18% and small cap schemes is -14.30% data from Value Research shows.

The average monthly inflows into equity schemes in H1FY19 fell to Rs 10,080 crore from Rs 14,200 crore in 2017-18, data from Association of Mutual Funds shows. Equity funds (which includes equity, ELSS and arbitrage funds) saw inflows of Rs 11,251 crore in September; this is higher than the Rs 5,923 crore in August which was a 18-month low.

With about 78.5% of all stocks in the red since the start of 2018, a study by FE shows, out of 741 companies with market capitalisation of Rs 1,000 crore and more, 409 companies have lost more than 20% of their value since January. Categories like technology and pharma are among few which have given positive returns in the last one year, largely due to the rupee depreciation.