13 equity schemes offer more than 25% SIP returns in five years

Most investors consider an SIP or Systematic Investment Plan as the most efficient way of investing in equity mutual funds. SIPs in equity funds help investors to create wealth over a long period of time by investing a particular amount at regular intervals. The number of new SIP registrations rose to 24.7 lakh in May from 19.56 lakh in April, data from Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed. The contributions in SIPs reached a new high of Rs 14,749 crore in May, from Rs 13,728 crore in April. The assets under management of SIP rose to Rs 7.53 lakh crore last month from Rs 7.17 lakh crore in April.

Sure, SIPs are helpful but have they offered great returns in the last five years? Five-year is very important as Sebi recategorisation of mutual funds happened in October 2017 and introduced Total Return Index (TRI) in February 2018. That is why ETMutualFunds looked at SIP performance of equity mutual funds in the five-year horizon.

We looked at equity categories such as large cap, mid cap, small cap, large & mid cap, focused fund, ELSS, value fund, contra fund, and multi cap fund. We did not consider the flexi cap category as it was launched in November 2020 and just completed three years. We calculated XIRR returns for the period starting from June 15, 2018 to June 15, 2023.

Around 154 equity schemes have completed five years of existence in the market. Quant Small Cap Fund delivered the highest return of 36.86% in five years, followed by Nippon India Small Cap Fund which offered 30.192% returns in the same period.

Apart from eight small cap funds, the list also features two mid cap funds, one ELSS fund, multi cap, and contra fund. None of the large cap schemes made it to the list.

Despite offering double-digit returns, some schemes do not feature in this list as we only considered the schemes that have offered more than 25% return in the five-year horizon.

We considered XIRR (% returns) while analyzing the performance of schemes via SIP. Regular and growth option schemes were considered for the analysis. The period for 10 years ranges from June 2018 to June 2023.

Note, the above exercise is not a recommendation. The main objective of this exercise was to find out how many schemes managed to offer 25% returns in the five-year horizon after the Sebi introduced TRI benchmarks. Investors should not base their investments or redemption decisions based on the above exercise. One should always consider investment objectives, risk appetite and investment horizons before investing.

If you are looking for recommendations, see:
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