How the Fund Comparison Tool Works
This tool takes the daily NAV history of any mutual fund, as published by AMFI, of two funds, Fund A and Fund B, and shows how they performed in three different ways: trailing returns, discrete returns and rolling returns. The return lines of the two funds are drawn together on one graph; discrete returns, best and worst periods and NAV audits have one card for each fund; and the return table, risk figures and risk graph put both funds next to the BSE Sensex, Nifty 50, Nifty Midcap 150 and Nifty Smallcap 250 indices.
Want to see what a monthly SIP in this fund would have given you? Use our SIP Backtest Tool.
What is used, and what is left out
- Data: the daily NAV history of the scheme, as published by AMFI. Choose the Growth option of the fund; IDCW (dividend) options are hidden from the search because payouts make their NAV misleading for return calculations.
- Indices: the three Nifty indices are total-return indices (TRI), which count dividends as reinvested, as a fund's NAV does. The BSE Sensex is a price index (leaves out dividends) because no total-return series is available for it; a TRI would show a slightly higher figure. If a Nifty TRI cannot be loaded, that row shows the price index and says so.
- Not included: exit load, taxes and any change in the fund's expense ratio over time (the NAV already has expenses deducted).
- A young fund: periods longer than the fund's history are shown as “--”.
Terms and Definitions
NAV – Net Asset Value, the price of one unit of a mutual fund on a given day. Example: ₹48.26.
Trailing return – how much the fund's NAV has grown over a fixed period that ends today (the latest NAV date), such as the last 1 month, 6 months, 1 year or 3 years. It answers “what did the fund give me if I had put in a lump sum exactly that long ago?” It is measured on the fund's own NAV, so it is not your SIP return. Up to 1 year the figure is the plain (absolute) gain; beyond 1 year it is shown per year (annualised, also called CAGR) so that a 3-year and a 5-year figure can be compared. YTD means from the last 31 December to today. Example 1: the NAV was ₹100 a year ago and is ₹113.91 today, so the 1-year trailing return is +13.91%. Example 2: the NAV was ₹100 three years ago and is ₹141.1 today; the fund gained 41.1% in total, which is about 12.16% a year, so the 3-year trailing return is shown as +12.16%. Limitation: every trailing return ends today, so a fund that had a great or terrible last few months looks very different from the same fund a quarter earlier.
SIP Growth (in this tool) – what a monthly SIP of ₹1,000 would have become in each fund over a trailing duration that ends today (5 years at first; YTD, 3 months, 6 months, 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 years or the period both funds cover can be chosen): one instalment on the same date every month from the start of that duration (or from the fund's first NAV if the fund is younger), each buying units at that day's NAV. The chart shows the total invested against the value of the units day by day, and the cards below it show total invested, current value, profit or loss, Max Drawdown (the worst fall of the fund's NAV from a peak to a later low during the SIP, with both dates and the time between them), XIRR (the yearly return that accounts for the date of every instalment) and the Wealth Multiplier (current value divided by total invested). Both funds get the same SIP amount, duration and dates, so the cards can be read side by side. Stamp duty, exit load and taxes are not included.
Discrete return – the fund's return in each separate, non-overlapping period of the calendar: each year, quarter, month or week, shown as a pair of bars per period, one for Fund A and one for Fund B on the same scale. It answers “how did the fund do in that particular year (or month) on its own?” and so shows how uneven returns really are, including the bad periods that an average hides. The latest bar is the current period so far (for example the year to date), not a full period. This page shows the last 10 years, 12 quarters, 24 months or 26 weeks. Example: if the NAV was ₹100 on 31 December 2023, ₹120 on 31 December 2024 and ₹114 on 31 December 2025, the bar for 2024 is +20.0% and the bar for 2025 is −5.0%, even though the fund is up 14% over the two years taken together. Tip: hover over (or touch) any pair of bars to see both exact values. Value labels on the bars appear only when there is room; the hover always shows them.
Rolling return – the annualised return over a fixed holding period (3, 5, 7 or 10 years), calculated again for every day the fund has history for, each time looking back that many years from that day. The result is a line showing what an investor would have earned whichever day they had started, so it removes the luck of the start date. Beside the line the page shows the average, the median, the best and worst outcome, and the share of days on which the return was positive. Example: for a 3-year rolling return, the point on 15 March 2024 is the yearly return from 15 March 2021 to 15 March 2024; the point on 16 March 2024 uses 16 March 2021 to 16 March 2024, and so on. If the average is +15.97% and the worst is −6.40%, then most 3-year holders earned about 16% a year, but someone who started on the worst day lost about 6.4% a year. A period is shown only if the fund is old enough: 10-year rolling returns need more than 10 years of NAVs.
Best & Worst Period – the highest and the lowest return the fund gave over any 1 week, 1 month, 3 months or 1 year, whichever trading day the period started on, together with its begin and end dates. It shows the best the fund has done and the worst you could have lived through over each length of time. Example: if the best 1-month return is +18.46% (4 Jun 2024 to 4 Jul 2024) and the worst is −13.49% (11 Apr 2022 to 11 May 2022), then within any single month the fund has gained as much as 18.46% and fallen as much as 13.49%. The returns are not annualised.
Max Drawdown – the biggest fall the fund has seen from a high point to a later low point, measured since the fund began. It is not a fall over a fixed period: it takes the highest NAV reached so far (the peak), looks for the lowest NAV that came after it (the low), and reports the fall between the two as a percentage, with both dates. It answers “if I had bought at the very worst moment, how much would I have been down at the deepest point?” and so shows how bumpy the ride can get. It says nothing about how long the fund took to recover. Example: a fund's NAV rises to ₹100 (the peak), then falls to ₹70 (the low) over the next few months, then climbs to ₹120, and later dips to ₹96. The first fall is 30% (100 to 70) and the second is 20% (120 to 96). The Max Drawdown is the larger one, −30%, with the peak date of ₹100 as Begin and the date of ₹70 as End.
Risk metrics – six numbers that describe how bumpy the ride was, all worked out from the fund's calendar-month returns over the lookback window you pick: 3, 5, 7 or 10 years (3 years to start with) (the return from one month-end NAV to the next; the running month is left out).
Mean return – the average monthly return multiplied by 12, to give a yearly figure. Example: an average of 1.95% a month is a mean return of 23.4%.
Standard deviation – how widely the monthly returns swing around their average, shown per year (monthly figure × √12). The higher it is, the bumpier the ride. Example: 20.5% means the fund's yearly return has typically moved about 20 percentage points either side of its average.
Sharpe ratio – return earned above the risk-free rate for every unit of standard deviation: (mean return − risk-free rate) ÷ standard deviation. Higher is better. Example: (23.4 − 7.44) ÷ 20.5 = 0.78.
Sortino ratio – like Sharpe, but it divides by the downside deviation, which counts only the months that fell short of the risk-free return, so upward swings are not penalised. Higher is better.
Beta – how much the fund moves when the index moves. 1.0 means it moves with the index; 0.9 means that for a 10% move in the index the fund has typically moved about 9%.
Alpha – the yearly return a fund earned above what its market risk (beta) alone would explain. A positive alpha means the fund did better than its beta justifies; a negative alpha means it did worse.
Formula: Alpha = (Fund mean return − Risk-free rate) − Beta × (Index mean return − Risk-free rate). All figures are yearly percentages from the calendar months of the lookback window (3, 5, 7 or 10 years). The risk-free rate is the 10-year G-Sec yield (7.44% on 28 Oct 2026).
Worked example (illustrative figures: a small cap fund against the Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI): Fund mean return 14.84%, Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI mean return 11.60%, Beta 1.06, risk-free rate 7.44% (a 3-year lookback).
- Fund excess return = 14.84 − 7.44 = 7.40%. This is what the fund earned over and above a risk-free investment.
- Index excess return = 11.60 − 7.44 = 4.16%. The index earned this much more than the risk-free rate over these 36 months.
- Return explained by beta = 1.06 × 4.16 = 4.41%. With a beta of 1.06, the fund was expected to earn about 4.41 points above the risk-free rate just by following the market.
- Alpha = 7.40 − 4.41 = 2.99%. The fund beat its beta-expected return by about 2.99 percentage points a year.
Things to keep in mind: (1) Alpha depends on the comparison index. Here a small cap fund is set against a small cap index, the better-suited choice. Against a poorly suited index (a small cap fund against the BSE Sensex, say) the expected return can be low and alpha looks large, so always compare a fund with the index that matches its category. (2) The Nifty indices here are total-return (TRI) indices, so dividends are counted; the BSE Sensex is a price index that leaves out dividends (roughly 1% a year for large caps), so against the Sensex the index mean is slightly understated and alpha slightly overstated. (3) The example figures are illustrative, and the page uses unrounded monthly figures, so working a result by hand from the rounded numbers shown may differ in the second decimal. (4) The risk-free rate is the 10-year G-Sec yield (7.44% a year on 28 Oct 2026), one current figure applied to the whole lookback window, and it is shown in the note under the Risk Metrics table. A longer lookback covers years when the yield was different.
Risk graph – a dot plot that puts return against risk. Each dot (Fund A, Fund B, BSE Sensex, Nifty 50, Nifty Midcap 150 and Nifty Smallcap 250) sits at its trailing return (up) and its standard deviation (across) for the period you pick: 1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 years, or since launch. The higher and further to the left a dot is, the better the return for the swing taken. Example: a fund at 22% standard deviation and 18% return, next to the Nifty 50 at 14% and 12%, has earned more but also been bumpier.
Annualised return (CAGR) – the return expressed per year, so that periods of different length can be compared. Example: a gain of 41.1% over 3 years is about 12.16% a year.
Total return index (TRI) – an index that counts the dividends of its shares as reinvested, so it is comparable with a fund's NAV. The Nifty indices on this page use their TRI; the BSE Sensex has none available.
Price index – an index that tracks only the prices of its shares and leaves out the dividends they pay. A fund's NAV includes the dividends its shares paid, so a fund and a price index are not exactly like for like.
Average AUM (AAUM) – the average value of all the money a scheme managed during a quarter, in crore rupees (Cr), as published by AMFI. It adds up all plans of the scheme (Direct, Regular, Growth, IDCW) and is shown with the quarter it covers, so it can be a few months old. Example: ₹1,10,925 Cr.
Nawneet Kumar Panjiyar is an AMFI Registered Mutual Fund Distributor (ARN 303470) and does not provide investment advisory services in the capacity of a Registered Investment Adviser. This tool is for education and illustration only.
