India’s best performing mutual funds for April 2022

After a brief respite in Mar-22, the equity markets were back to negative zone in Apr-22. This marked the third month in calendar 2022 when Nifty and the smaller indices gave negative returns. For the month of Apr-22, Nifty and Mid-Cap Nifty closed with losses of -2.07% and -0.18% respectively. The Nifty small cap index corrected by -1.72% in Apr-22.

FPI selling continued relentlessly in Apr-22, after the FPIs had sold Rs.1.40 trillion in FY22. In Apr-22, the FPIs sold Rs17,144cr in equities and amplified the effect with cumulative selling of Rs22,688cr across equity, debt and hybrids. FPI selling was driven by Fed hawkishness, Q4 concerns on margins, inflation worries, geopolitical risks in Ukraine and China lockdowns.

In Mar-22, the 10-year bond yields had stayed put in the range of 6.80% to 6.90%. However, post the monetary policy, which effectively raised the reverse repo rate through the back door by 60 bps, the 10-year bond yield surged above 7% and stayed put. In Apr-22, bond yields touched a high of 7.19%, before closing the month at 7.14%.

Equity Large-Cap Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Axis Blue-Chip Fund (G)	9.158%	14.454%	14.642%
Canara Robeco Blue-Chip (G)	11.833%	17.053%	14.195%
Mirae Asset Large Cap (G)	15.236%	14.032%	13.236%
Data Source: Morningstar

2. Equity Multi-Cap Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Active Fund (G)	30.312%	32.400%	22.872%
Sundaram Multi-Cap Fund (G)	27.652%	17.607%	13.218%
Nippon India Multi-Cap (G)	32.423%	14.954%	12.703%
Data Source: Morningstar

3. Equity Mid-Cap Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Mid-Cap Fund (G)	39.480%	30.926%	20.938%
Axis Mid Cap Fund (G)	18.786%	22.258%	18.055%
PGIM India Mid-Cap Fund (G)	26.037%	31.839%	17.007%
Data Source: Morningstar

4. Equity Small-Cap Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Small Cap Fund (G)	38.827%	38.928%	22.081%
Axis Small Cap Fund (G)	32.505%	29.914%	19.636%
SBI Small Cap Fund (G)	27.134%	26.712%	19.579%
Data Source: Morningstar

5. Equity Linked Savings Schemes (Tax Saving)

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Tax Plan (G)	34.408%	34.808%	22.967%
BOI AXA Tax Advantage (G)	16.042%	24.123%	16.708%
Mirae Asset Tax Saver (G)	17.112%	19.620%	16.672%
Data Source: Morningstar

6. Balanced Funds (Aggressive Allocation)

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Absolute Fund (G)	28.390%	27.588%	19.883%
ICICI Pru Equity & Debt (G)	30.332%	18.827%	14.377%
BOI AXA Mid and Small (G)	25.953%	21.301%	14.363%
Data Source: Morningstar

7. Balanced Funds (Conservative Allocation)

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Kotak Debt Hybrid (G)	9.458%	11.513%	8.663%
ICICI Pru Regular Savings (G)	8.275%	9.387%	8.562%
Canara Robeco Hybrid (G)	6.215%	10.110%	8.024%
Data Source: Morningstar

8. Arbitrage Funds (Cash-Futures)

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Kotak Equity Arbitrage (G)	4.003%	4.560%	5.246%
Nippon India Arbitrage (G)	3.838%	4.479%	5.233%
Edelweiss Arbitrage Fund (G)	3.946%	4.592%	5.210%
Data Source: Morningstar

9. Government Securities Funds (Gilt Funds)

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Edelweiss G-Sec Fund (G)	2.690%	8.807%	7.626%
ICICI Pru Gilt Fund (G)	3.195%	8.170%	7.420%
IDFC G-Sec Fund (G)	2.447%	8.654%	7.405%
Data Source: Morningstar

10. Corporate Bond Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
ABSL Corporate Bond (G)	4.079%	7.840%	7.573%
L&T Triple Ace Bond (G)	3.174%	8.567%	7.454%
HDFC Corporate Bond (G)	3.708%	7.750%	7.446%
Data Source: Morningstar

11. Credit Risk Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
ICICI Pru Credit Risk Fund (G)	6.172%	8.190%	7.640%
HDFC Credit Risk Fund (G)	5.894%	8.371%	7.367%
Baroda Credit Risk Fund (G)	13.384%	7.472%	7.049%
Data Source: Morningstar

12. Liquid Funds

Top performing Regular Plans (Growth Option) on 5-year returns (as on 30th Apr-22):

Name of Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Return	5-Year Return
Quant Liquid Plan (G)	3.831%	4.918%	5.756%
IDBI Liquid Fund (G)	3.508%	4.434%	5.513%
Mahindra Manulife Liquid (G)	3.441%	4.325%	5.449%
Data Source: Morningstar

In Apr-22, equity fund returns over the 1-year period were negatively impacted across large caps, mid-caps and small caps. This was due to a combination of the base effect and weak performance in April 2022. FPI selling, geopolitical risk and Fed hawkishness were the big risks for the market in April and they are likely to remain pain points in May-22 too. The good news is; longer term returns were not impacted meaningfully. One more important takeaway from the equity fund rankings is that the consistency of the top performers across categories sustained. This makes the rankings a reliable barometer of future performance.

Bond funds, especially the long duration bond holdings, were negatively impacted in Apr-22. That was largely on account of the 10 year benchmark bond yields rallying in Apr-22 from 6.8% to 7.2%, post the monetary policy announcement. In April 2022, the bond yields spiked after the monetary policy raised the inflation target for FY23 and also indirectly raised the reverse repo rates by 60 basis points. In the recent Mar-22 quarter, the debt fund AUM fell below active equity fund AUM for the first time. A lot of the reasoning behind that AUM shift is visible in the debt fund return numbers in the rankings above.