This article highlights the best-performing equity and hybrid funds, based on their historical performance compared to the Nifty 50 index.

Disclaimer: The Fund names in this article are not recommendations to buy/hold/sell. Mutual funds are subject to market risks. Do not invest real money without adequate research.

📚 Table of Contents

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• What is the concept of relative risk vs. return performance of mutual funds against the market benchmark?
• Which mutual funds have higher returns at lower risk vs the broad market?
• What should investors do with this data?

The ultimate investment goal for mutual fund investors is high returns at low risk. The stock market always offers opportunities to pick up funds that have the potential to give stable returns with lower fluctuations.

Identifying funds that have done well in the past vs. the Nifty 50 index fund can be tricky since getting and analysing the data might be tricky.

This article shows a list of mutual funds based on their historical returns.

What is the concept of relative risk vs. return performance of mutual funds against the market benchmark?

If we split the list of all equity mutual funds then we will end up with four categories:

• funds that give better returns than the Nifty 50 index fund but with lower risk which are ideal for any investor
• funds that give better returns than the Nifty 50 index fund but with higher risk which are great for investors with high risk tolerance
• funds that give lower returns than the Nifty 50 index fund but with lower risk which are good for debt funds
• funds that give lower returns than the Nifty 50 index fund but with higher risk which is a terrible place to be for an equity fund

Related:
Which are high-risk and underperforming mutual funds that can be avoided by investors?

Incidentally, users of the free Arthgyaan mutual fund portfolio review service will get the above chart created for all funds in their portfolio.

In this article, we will look at the latest list of equity mutual funds, including index funds tracking indices other than the Nifty 50, to check if they are in the best category of higher returns and lower risk.

In the analysis below, we have chosen equity and hybrid mutual funds with higher returns at lower risk using the last three years of market data from AMFI for the period ending 04-Mar-2025. The funds that have fallen the most from their 52-week high levels are presented first.

Related:
Bottom fishing tracker: which mutual funds have fallen the most?

Which mutual funds have higher returns at lower risk vs the broad market?

Note: This chart represents point-to-point data. The funds in the list will change over time as the future performance of any particular fund is random and cannot be predicted in advance.

Other: Index Funds

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
UTI Nifty Midcap 150 Quality 50 Index	20.97	15.3743	12.1510
HDFC NIFTY 100 Index	17.25	16.0349	13.2690
Axis Nifty 100 Index	17.18	24.0211	19.8942
SBI NIFTY INDEX	15.53	240.9277	203.5084
UTI BSE Sensex Index	14.79	15.2494	12.9945
Nippon India Index	14.77	45.8876	39.1100

Equity: Sectoral or Thematic

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Edelweiss Recently Listed IPO	23.63	31.0795	23.7358
Axis Quant	22.97	18.8100	14.4900
Aditya Birla Sun Life MNC	22.07	1635.1800	1274.3100
SBI Magnum COMMA	21.09	120.1465	94.8063
Tata Ethical	20.87	493.1378	390.2163
Tata Digital India	19.99	65.7465	52.6063
Aditya Birla Sun Life Digital India	18.79	220.9900	179.4700
Kotak ESG Exclusionary Strategy	17.66	19.4330	16.0010
Aditya Birla Sun Life ESG Integration Strategy	17.33	20.0800	16.6000
Invesco India ESG Integration Strategy	17.04	20.0100	16.6000
ICICI Prudential Technology	16.83	249.9900	207.9100
Axis ESG Integration Strategy	16.70	24.7900	20.6500
SBI ESG Exclusionary Strategy	15.23	273.1287	231.5299

Other: FoF Overseas

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
HSBC Brazil	14.20	8.1888	7.0260
Invesco India Invesco Global Consumer Trends	13.34	11.0237	9.5527
DSP Global Clean Energy	12.71	20.0274	17.4826
Mahindra Manulife Asia Pacific REITs FOF	11.21	9.6479	8.5662
Kotak International REIT FOF	10.53	11.1344	9.9614

Equity: Large Mid Cap

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Aditya Birla Sun Life Equity Advantage	19.75	1061.9200	852.2300

Equity: Flexi Cap

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Samco Flexi Cap	29.33	13.2300	9.3500
Shriram Flexi Cap	23.86	26.2302	19.9714
LIC MF Flexi Cap	22.76	117.4158	90.6881
Axis Flexi Cap	17.73	30.5100	25.1000
PGIM India Flexi Cap	17.02	43.7200	36.2800
UTI Flexi Cap	15.13	361.4332	306.7551

Equity: Large Cap

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
LIC MF Large Cap	17.94	66.6131	54.6603

Equity: Focused

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Motilal Oswal Focused 25	30.80	59.9011	41.4542
BARODA BNP PARIBAS Focused	22.00	26.7535	20.8684
Axis Focused	17.13	66.6100	55.2000
Mirae Asset Focused	16.80	28.8560	24.0070
Union Focused	16.68	27.8200	23.1800

Equity: ELSS

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Shriram ELSS Tax Saver	23.40	27.0346	20.7074
UTI ELSS Tax Saver	18.44	246.5335	201.0728
Axis ELSS Tax Saver	15.97	113.6849	95.5268

Solution: Child Fund

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
UTI Childrens Equity	18.52	100.5860	81.9599

Other: FoF Domestic

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Tata Nifty India Digital ETF	20.40	16.2891	12.9660
Mirae Asset ESG Sector Leaders	16.46	19.6940	16.4520

Equity: Small Cap

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
PGIM India Small Cap	21.08	17.9300	14.1500

Equity: Multi Cap

Fund	Change (%)	NAV (52w high)	Latest NAV
Sundaram Multi Cap	20.73	101.0619	80.1115

What should investors do with this data?

Related:
Analyze Your Mutual Fund Portfolio for Free with Arthgyaan's Mutual Fund Review Service

There are three key takeaways from this data:

1. Review existing funds: Investors should check if their current funds are on the list and evaluate their next steps, including consulting their advisor. Such funds should be shortlisted for future additional investment
2. Bottom fishing opportunities: Funds in the list might represent bottom-fishing opportunities since their performance has been stable vs. the market index
3. Introduce hybrid funds into the portfolio: This might be a good opportunity to move some portion of the portfolio to hybrid funds that have an allocation to both equity and debt with automated tax-free rebalancing