Active mid-cap, small-cap schemes fly high with 'benchmark-beating' returns

Mid-, small-caps fly high with benchmark-beating returns while active large-cap funds are struggling to beat their benchmarks, more than half of active mid-cap schemes and over 90 per cent active small-cap schemes have delivered 'benchmark beating' returns in most time frames.

An analysis of Value Research and Bloomberg data shows that 56 per cent of active mid-cap funds performed better than the Nifty Midcap 150 total return index (TRI), which has gone up 3.5 per cent in the last one year (as of January 2). In the 3-year and 5-year time frames, the outperformance ratio is 43 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively.

In the case of small-caps, 90 per cent of the active funds have outperformed the Nifty Smallcap 250 TRI, which declined 3.1 per cent in the one-year period. The outperformance ratio is higher in the 3-year and 5-year time frames.

The study also shows that over 50 per cent of the active flexi-cap schemes have not been able to beat the benchmark Nifty 500 TRI in 1-year, 3-year and 5-year time frames.

This study is based on Nifty indices and the results could slightly differ when active fund performances are compared with the BSE indices.