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

This article categorizes mutual funds based on relative performance, highlighting those offering lower returns at higher risk which can be potentially avoided by investors.

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


Posted on 22 Jan 2025 • Updated on: 07 May 2025
Author: Sayan Sircar
9 mins read
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This article categorizes mutual funds based on relative performance, highlighting those offering lower returns at higher risk which can be potentially avoided by investors.

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

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.

If you are unhappy with the performance of your mutual funds, you can get a free Mutual Fund Portfolio review.

This article is a part of our detailed article series on the worst performing mutual funds in India. Ensure you have read the other parts here:

📚 Table of Contents

The most basic and simplest equity mutual fund investment that an investor can make is a Nifty 50 Index fund.

Since a diversified index like the Nifty 50 is a decent representative of the stock market, since Nifty 500 and Nifty Total Market funds are quite new, and index funds tracking the Nifty 50 are quite common and popular, it makes a lot of sense to choose active funds that at least attempt to give better returns than the humble Nifty 50 index fund.

By better returns here, we mean, vs. the Nifty 50 index fund,

  • higher returns
  • lower risk (measured via volatility)
  • or both

Funds that don’t give either better returns or have higher volatility than index funds should be carefully reviewed to understand the reason for underperformance.

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

Excess Risk and Return of Funds vs the Nifty 50 TRI

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

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 worst category of lower returns and higher risk.

In the analysis below, we have chosen equity and hybrid mutual funds with worse returns at higher risk using the last three years of market data from AMFI for the period ending 06-May-2025. The funds that have fallen the most from their 52-week high levels are presented first.


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Which mutual funds have lower returns at higher 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.

Hybrid: Aggressive

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
JM Aggressive Hybrid 11.50 147.1653 130.2377

Equity: Sectoral or Thematic

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
ICICI Prudential MNC 14.02 33.0200 28.3900
ICICI Prudential Bharat Consumption 12.92 29.7100 25.8700
SBI Equity Minimum Variance 12.58 27.2354 23.8104

Solution: Child Fund

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
SBI Magnum Childrens Benefit 10.19 46.3549 41.6324

Solution: Retirement Fund

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
SBI Retirement Benefit 10.87 22.4838 20.0403

Other: FoF Domestic

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
ICICI Prudential Nifty 100 Low Volatility 30 ETF FOF 10.38 19.8080 17.7527

Other: Index Funds

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
Edelweiss Nifty 100 Quality 30 Index 14.43 16.2351 13.8925
UTI BSE Low Volatility Index 10.49 18.2369 16.3230

Equity: Large Cap

Fund Change (%) NAV (52w high) Latest NAV
BARODA BNP PARIBAS LARGE CAP 10.34 271.7361 243.6421

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What should investors do with this data?

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.
  2. Bottom fishing opportunities: Funds in the list might represent bottom-fishing opportunities if you can make a case that the underperformance is a buying opportunity for a lump sum investment.
  3. Exit active funds in the portfolio: This might be a good opportunity to move off to index funds to avoid future underperformance

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This post titled Which are the high-risk and underperforming mutual funds that can be avoided by investors? first appeared on 22 Jan 2025 at https://arthgyaan.com


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