Though most fund houses faced severe redemption pressures and wild market swings last year, a few stood out. But gold ETFs stole the show with a 177% growth in asset under management

The 2010-11 fiscal year may have been a good year for the Indian equity markets buoyed by record inflows from foreign portfolio investors. But not for the Indian mutual fund industry.

Although the benchmark indices, the Sensex and Nifty, delivered returns of 10.94% and 11.14%, respectively, equity-diversified large-cap funds generated returns of just about 6.75%. To compound the problems of fund houses, with markets being choppy during this phase, fund houses had to handle severe redemption pressures.

While it was a rough ride for equities during the year, gold exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, posted a record jump of 177% in assets under management (AUM) at Rs 4,400 crore, thanks to the outstanding rise in the prices of precious metals (gold and silver) over the past one year.

Be it equity or gold, investors are always keen to track the performance or returns generated by their investments. ET Quarterly MF Tracker provides you a performance update of mutual fund schemes across five broad categories of equity diversified, equity tax-saving (ELSS), monthly income plans (MIP), equity-oriented balanced and debt schemes.

THE PERFORMANCE REPORT

A total of 317 schemes were analysed this quarter across these five broad categories and graded according to their performances as Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Lead. Only those schemes, which have been on offer for at least three years, were considered for the risk-return analysis.

In the ELSS category of funds, Canara Robeco Equity Tax Saver and HDFC Tax Saver continue to be the top quartile performers once again. While Canara Robeco Equity Tax Saver has proved to be a stand-out performer in the category with a ranking of Platinum for the eighth consecutive quarter, HDFC Tax Saver has moved up in the rankings after being an average performer in just about three quarters. Popular and larger schemes in this category ? Fidelity Tax Advantage, ICICI Prudential Tax Plan and Sahara Tax Gain did not disappoint either, featuring in the Gold category during the quarter.

The equity diversified category was marked by a heavy reshuffling, with popular schemes such as IDFC Premier Equity, UTI Dividend Yield and Quantum Long Term Equity slipping from the Platinum rankings to Gold while a few schemes, such as Kotak 50 and HDFC Capital Builder, made the cut to Platinum rankings for the first time.

Quite a few new schemes have been included in the analysis this quarter ? HDFC Long Term Equity, Franklin India Smaller Co, HSBC Small Cap, IDFC Small & Midcap, L&T Smallcap, Sahara REAL, Religare AGILE and Religare Mid & Small Cap. Besides a couple of infrastructure schemes, L&T Infrastructure, LIC MF Infrastructure, Religare Infrastructure and AIG Infrastructure & Economic Reforms have also been included in the analysis.

FUND HOUSE OF THE QUARTER

HDFC, which had nine Platinum rankings, proved to be a cut above the rest in the best fund house tally. For the fifth consecutive quarter, HDFC has emerged as the best fund house. Over half of the schemes of HDFC, which have been included in the ET Quarterly MF rating analysis, figure in our list of Platinum rankings, with some of its schemes being graded as Gold and two as Silver.