What each column tells you
A screener is only useful if you know which numbers deserve weight. These five do different jobs.
NAV is the per-unit price. It tells you almost nothing about a fund’s quality — a ₹500 NAV is not “expensive” and a ₹12 NAV is not “cheap”. It reflects how long the fund has existed and how it has compounded, nothing more. Ignore it when comparing funds; it matters only for working out how many units your money buys.
1Y, 3Y and 5Y returns are annualised for periods over a year, so a 15% five-year figure means 15% a year, not 15% in total. They are before exit load and tax.
Expense ratio is the annual percentage the fund house deducts. It is the only column here that is knowable in advance, and over long periods it is decisive.
AUM is assets under management, in crore — how much money the fund runs.
Why the expense ratio matters more than it looks
A one-point difference in expense ratio sounds trivial next to returns that swing ten points a year. Over a full holding period it is not.
The illustration below is arithmetic, not a forecast. It assumes a constant 12% return before costs purely to isolate what the expense ratio does — no fund returns a steady 12%, and this is not a projection of what any fund will earn.
| Expense ratio | Net return | Final value | Lost to fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5% | 11.5% | ₹88.2 lakh | ₹8.3 lakh |
| 1.0% | 11.0% | ₹80.6 lakh | ₹15.8 lakh |
| 1.5% | 10.5% | ₹73.7 lakh | ₹22.8 lakh |
| 2.0% | 10.0% | ₹67.3 lakh | ₹29.2 lakh |
The gap between a 0.5% fund and a 2.0% fund is ₹20.9 lakh — around a quarter of the final corpus. Same market, same starting amount, same twenty years. The only difference is what the fund house took.
Past returns may or may not repeat. The expense ratio is charged every year regardless, and it is published in advance — which is what makes it different in kind from the return columns beside it.
Reading returns without fooling yourself
Sort by 1Y and you will mostly surface whichever sector or theme has just had a good year. That is not a signal about the fund; it is a signal about the market. A thematic fund topping the one-year table often means the theme is already expensive.
Three practical habits:
- Compare within a category, never across. A small cap fund beating a large cap fund tells you nothing — they take different risks. Use the category filter first, then sort.
- Weight the longer periods. Five-year numbers survive at least one full market cycle. One-year numbers are noise dressed as information.
- Check the spread, not just the top. If the best and worst fund in a category are three points apart, the category matters more than your pick. If they are fifteen apart, the pick matters.
Why this screener shows direct plans only
Every mutual fund comes in two versions. Regular plans pay a trail commission to whoever sold you the fund, and that cost is inside the expense ratio you pay. Direct plans cut out the distributor, so their expense ratio is lower — typically by 0.5% to 1% a year for equity funds.
Same fund manager, same portfolio, same everything else. The only difference is the commission.
Applying the table above: a 1% difference in expense ratio over 20 years costs roughly ₹15.8 lakh on a ₹10 lakh investment. That is the price of buying the regular plan of a fund you could have bought directly.
This screener lists direct plans because that is what the numbers should be compared on. If you hold regular plans, your actual returns are lower than what you see here.
Does fund size matter?
Sometimes, and it cuts both ways.
A very large fund in a small or mid cap category can struggle. There are only so many small companies with enough liquidity to absorb large positions, so a fund that grows quickly may drift toward larger stocks than its label suggests, or find that its own buying moves the price against it.
A very small fund carries different risks — higher costs spread over a thin base, and the possibility of being merged away.
In large cap and index categories, size is largely irrelevant; the underlying stocks are liquid enough to absorb anything. Use the AUM column as a sanity check within a category, not as a ranking.
Understanding the categories
The category filter uses SEBI’s own scheme classification, which every fund house must follow. That is what makes comparison meaningful — a fund labelled Large Cap must hold at least 80% in the top 100 companies by market capitalisation, whichever house runs it.
Broadly: equity categories are defined by the size of the companies held (large, mid, small, flexi, multi) or by a theme; hybrid categories mix equity and debt in stated proportions; solution oriented funds are tied to a goal such as retirement or a child’s education, and come with a lock-in.
What a screener cannot tell you
This tool ranks funds on published numbers. It does not know several things that matter:
- Whether the manager who produced those returns is still there. A five-year record under a manager who left last year describes someone else’s work.
- What the fund actually holds. Two funds in one category can own very different portfolios, and two funds in your portfolio can own largely the same stocks.
- Whether it suits you. Nothing here accounts for your time horizon, tax position, existing holdings or how much loss you can tolerate.
- Exit load and tax, both of which reduce what you keep.
Use it to narrow a field of hundreds to a shortlist of a few. Read the scheme documents before deciding, and speak to a registered adviser if the decision matters.