GQG Partners has pared its holdings in two Adani Group companies through block deals worth about Rs 5,750 crore, with SBI Mutual Fund emerging as the buyer of the entire stake on Friday. According to NSE block deal data, GQG Partners Emerging Markets Equity Fund sold shares in Adani Enterprises and Adani Energy Solutions.

The larger transaction involved 1.64 crore shares of Adani Enterprises sold at Rs 2,913.4 apiece, translating into a deal value of about Rs 4,789 crore. In a separate transaction, GQG sold 63.66 lakh shares of Adani Energy Solutions at Rs 1,504.8 per share, amounting to around Rs 958 crore.

Together, the two transactions were valued at about Rs 5,747 crore. The shares were acquired by SBI Mutual Fund at the same prices through corresponding block deals.

The stake sale comes after a strong run in Adani Group stocks over the past year, during which several group companies recovered sharply from the volatility that followed allegations made by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research in 2023.

GQG had emerged as one of the earliest large institutional investors to back the Adani Group following that episode. Beginning in 2023, the fund manager invested billions of dollars across multiple Adani companies, helping restore investor confidence at a time when foreign institutional participation in the group had weakened.

Since then, Adani companies have focused on deleveraging, strengthening cash flows and improving operational performance. Several group entities have reported healthy earnings growth, while execution across infrastructure, energy and transport businesses has remained strong.

The latest transaction will be viewed by market participants largely as a portfolio rebalancing exercise rather than a change in the fund’s broader investment thesis on the group.Adani Enterprises, the flagship incubator of the conglomerate, houses businesses spanning airports, roads, green hydrogen, data centres and mining services. Adani Energy Solutions is one of India’s largest private-sector transmission companies and is expanding its presence in smart metering and distribution infrastructure.

Shares of both Adani Enterprises and Adani Energy Solutions are likely to remain in focus as investors assess the implications of the stake sale and changes in institutional ownership.

Mutual funds turned quietly aggressive in the March 2026 quarter, raising their stakes in around 82 midcap stocks, a move that often signals deep research, strong conviction, and a long-term bet on growth.
What makes this even more interesting is the contrast with broader market performance. Despite a weak start to CY2026, with most stocks delivering negative returns over the past four months, a select group has defied the trend. About 17 stocks have posted strong double-digit returns, standing out in an otherwise subdued market. Among these, eight midcap names have emerged as clear momentum leaders, rallying anywhere between 25% and 85% so far this year. These are not just random winners, they are attracting meaningful institutional inflows, suggesting that smart money is actively positioning itself in pockets of strength even as the broader market struggles. (Data source: ACE Equity)

Large Cap’s five-year decline – a structural re-rating of where Indian investors want their money

Large Cap’s share of total equity AUM has fallen in a straight line – 18.2% (Mar-21) → 16.6% (Mar-22) → 15.5% (Mar-23) → 13.4% (Mar-24) → 12.2% (Mar-25) → 11.4% (Mar-26). In absolute rupees, Large Cap AUM grew from ₹1,78,324 Cr to ₹3,66,045 Cr, so money didn’t leave – it just barely doubled while total equity AUM more than tripled (₹9,79,367 Cr to ₹31,97,698 Cr). Every other category’s share in the overall pie grew faster.

The ratio shift against Mid and Small Cap is the most striking way to visualise this. In March 2021, Mid Cap was just 0.65x the size of Large Cap, and Small Cap at a distant 0.39x. By March 2026, Mid Cap has crossed over at 1.14x Large Cap – bigger than Large Cap for the first time – and Small Cap has reached 0.91x, closing in fast. Year by year, this progression is relentless:

Trend 2:

Sectoral/Thematic: Five years of dominance, one extraordinary year, and a sharp correction

Sectoral/Thematic AUM has grown nearly 5x from ₹98,080 Cr (Mar-21) to ₹4,77,309 Cr (Mar-26), with equity AUM share rising from 10.0% to 14.9% — a story of genuine secular growth. But the flow data tells a more nuanced story.

The annual flows: FY22: ₹27,128 Cr (16.5%) → FY23: ₹23,731 Cr (16.2%) → FY24: ₹46,138 Cr (25.1%) → FY25: ₹1,46,656 Cr (35.2%) → FY26: ₹29,975 Cr (8.6%). FY25 was the outlier — more than one rupee in every three going into equity mutual funds chose a sectoral or thematic fund. Three forces converged: India’s capex Supercycle gave credible narratives for infrastructure, defence and manufacturing launches; PSU re-rating attracted fresh money; and crucially, unlike most equity categories where SEBI permits only one scheme per fund house, there is no limit on sectoral and thematic fund launches.

FY26’s pullback to 8.6% of flows is the market’s verdict. Defence, PSU and manufacturing themes underperformed as valuations stretched and earnings upcycles disappointed. Redemptions followed losses. FY25 was a powerful reminder that NFO-driven surges built on narratives and not on earnings do reverse.

Trend 3:

Multi Asset Allocation Funds (MAAFs): From niche to essential, fuelled by gold and silver’s historic run

Multi Asset Allocation Fund (MAAFs) has been the single biggest structural winner in the entire hybrid segment over five years: from ₹14,795 Cr (Mar-21) to ₹26,591 Cr (Mar-23), and then an explosion to ₹1,73,762 Cr by Mar-26. Its share of hybrid AUM has surged from 4.1% (Mar-21) to 16.8% (Mar-26) — the largest positive shift of any hybrid sub-category. Net inflows tell the same story: FY22: ₹1,498 Cr → FY23: ₹6,070 Cr → FY24: ₹33,054 Cr → FY25: ₹34,786 Cr → FY26: ₹65,209 Cr.

The fuel for the growth of this category has been precious metals. Gold rose 21% in value in 2024 alone in INR terms, before surging a further ~55% in 2025. Because SEBI mandates MAAFs invest at least 10% each in equities, debt and commodities, these funds had built-in exposure to the precious metals rally. When equity markets struggled in late 2024 and 2025, the gold and silver allocation cushioned returns and made MAAFs standout performers. Multi-asset funds delivered an average return of 17.4% in 2025, even as equity markets struggled. Flows followed performance, and the changes in debt fund taxation in 2023 and 2024 removed indexation benefits, pushing investors toward alternatives — multi-asset funds quietly filled this gap.

TREND 4:

Overseas FOF: fighting regulatory handcuffs to capture a global market recovery

The story of overseas Fund of Funds in India is as much about regulation as it is about returns.

The AUM journey: ₹12,408 Cr (Mar-21) → ₹22,609 Cr (Mar-22) → ₹22,991 Cr (Mar-23) → ₹25,713 Cr (Mar-24) → ₹25,031 Cr (Mar-25) → ₹38,287 Cr (Mar-26). The flat line from Mar-22 to Mar-25 is not investor disinterest — it is the direct consequence of a regulatory wall. In January 2022, SEBI restricted mutual funds from accepting new investments in international funds as the industry breached the USD 7 billion limit. By April 2024, the USD 1 billion cap for overseas ETFs was also reached, leading to a complete ban on fresh inflows — no new lump-sum investments or SIPs permitted in most overseas equity schemes unless redemptions created room within the caps.

The flow data shows exactly what happened. FY22 saw strong inflows of ₹10,674 Cr as investors rushed into global markets. Then the gates closed: FY23 flows dropped to just ₹1,639 Cr, FY24 saw net outflows of ₹3,143 Cr, and FY25 was still negative at ₹2,065 Cr. Investors who wanted global exposure had essentially nowhere to go through the mutual fund route. Around 70 schemes in India focus on overseas investing, but their ability to accept new investments is constrained by industry-wide limits.

FY26 marks the first meaningful recovery: ₹4,826 Cr of net inflows, with acceleration clearly visible in monthly data — flows went from near-zero in the first half of FY26 (Apr–Jun 2025) to ₹962 Cr in September, ₹882 Cr in January 2026, and ₹904 Cr in February 2026. The trigger is performance, as the global and emerging market equity indices started recovering strongly — providing exactly the return differentiation that makes overseas diversification compelling for Indian investors. The AUM jumped from ₹25,031 Cr (Mar-25) to ₹38,287 Cr (Mar-26) in a single year — a 53% increase.

TREND 5:

SIP Book: A decade of compounding discipline, now crossing ₹32,000 Cr a month

March 2026 marked a watershed moment for Indian mutual funds: monthly SIP inflows crossed ₹32,087 Crore for the first time, setting an all-time high. This is not a one-month spike — it is the culmination of a decade-long structural shift in how India saves. Total SIP inflows for FY 2025-26 stand at ₹3,49,589 Crore — up 21% over FY25’s ₹2,89,352 Crore, and more than 8x the ₹43,921 Crore collected just ten years ago in FY 2016-17. The compounding of the SIP book itself has become one of Indian finance’s most reliable data stories.

The growth trajectory across fiscal years tells a clean story of acceleration: FY17: ₹43,921 Cr → FY18: ₹67,190 Cr → FY19: ₹92,693 Cr → FY20: ₹1,00,084 Cr → FY21: ₹96,080 Cr → FY22: ₹1,24,566 Cr → FY23: ₹1,55,972 Cr → FY24: ₹1,99,219 Cr → FY25: ₹2,89,352 Cr → FY26: ₹3,49,589 Cr. The only blip was FY21, when COVID disrupted household cash flows and many investors paused mandates. Every other year has been higher than the previous one.

The monthly data within FY26 is equally striking. April 2025 opened at ₹26,632 Cr — already higher than any single month before FY24. By September, inflows had crossed ₹29,000 Cr. December ’25 and January ’26 both touched ₹31,000 Cr. And March 2026 delivered the milestone: ₹32,087 Crore, the highest monthly SIP collection in the history of the Indian mutual fund industry. This was not driven by a single market event or an NFO surge — it reflects the quiet, persistent expansion of the SIP register, with new SIP registrations consistently outpacing discontinuations through FY26.

What makes this growth durable is its source. SIPs are not lump-sum market calls — they are standing instructions, auto-debited from bank accounts, renewed by inertia as much as by conviction. Once registered, most investors stay in. The expanding SIP book means the industry now enters every month with a guaranteed base of inflows that is structurally larger than the month before. At ₹32,000 Crore a month, the SIP run-rate alone exceeds the total equity inflows the industry used to see in an entire year as recently as FY17. India has built a savings machine — and it keeps getting larger.

The growth trajectory across fiscal years tells a clean story of acceleration: FY17: ₹43,921 Cr → FY18: ₹67,190 Cr → FY19: ₹92,693 Cr → FY20: ₹1,00,084 Cr → FY21: ₹96,080 Cr → FY22: ₹1,24,566 Cr → FY23: ₹1,55,972 Cr → FY24: ₹1,99,219 Cr → FY25: ₹2,89,352 Cr → FY26: ₹3,49,589 Cr. The only blip was FY21, when COVID disrupted household cash flows and many investors paused mandates. Every other year has been higher than the previous one.

The monthly data within FY26 is equally striking. April 2025 opened at ₹26,632 Cr — already higher than any single month before FY24. By September, inflows had crossed ₹29,000 Cr. December ’25 and January ’26 both touched ₹31,000 Cr. And March 2026 delivered the milestone: ₹32,087 Crore, the highest monthly SIP collection in the history of the Indian mutual fund industry. This was not driven by a single market event or an NFO surge — it reflects the quiet, persistent expansion of the SIP register, with new SIP registrations consistently outpacing discontinuations through FY26.

What makes this growth durable is its source. SIPs are not lump-sum market calls — they are standing instructions, auto-debited from bank accounts, renewed by inertia as much as by conviction. Once registered, most investors stay in. The expanding SIP book means the industry now enters every month with a guaranteed base of inflows that is structurally larger than the month before. At ₹32,000 Crore a month, the SIP run-rate alone exceeds the total equity inflows the industry used to see in an entire year as recently as FY17. India has built a savings machine — and it keeps getting larger.

TREND 6:

Market Share Shift — who gained, who lost, and what it says about where investors are moving their money

Total equity AUM more than doubled from ₹15,17,082 Crore in March 2023 to ₹31,97,698 Crore by March 2026 — a ₹16.8 lakh Crore expansion in three years. image.png

But this growth was deeply uneven across categories. Of the eleven equity sub-categories tracked by

AMFI, six gained market share, and five lost it. The divergence is not noise — it reflects a structural reallocation of investor preference that has been building since FY22 and is now clearly legible in the data.

The gainers: risk appetite moving up the curve. Sectoral and Thematic funds were the single biggest winners in equity, gaining 3.5 percentage points (pp) of share to reach 14.9% of equity AUM. Mid Cap (+1.0pp), Small Cap (+1.7pp), Multi Cap (+1.9pp), and Large & Mid Cap (+1.0pp) all gained ground — a consistent pattern of investors moving away from pure large-cap safety and toward higher-risk, higher-return mandates. Net inflows into these categories were substantial and deliberate: Mid Cap saw ₹1,10,898 Crore of net inflows over the period, Small Cap’s net inflows stood at ₹1,29,901 Crore. Crucially, in Mid Cap, 68% of the AUM growth came from mark-to-market appreciation — meaning investors who came in were rewarded, which in turn attracted more.

The losers: structural headwinds, not temporary underperformance. Large Cap lost 4.1 percentage points of equity AUM share — the steepest decline of any category — falling from 15.5% to 11.4%. This is not because Large Cap AUM shrank: it grew from ₹2,35,760 Crore to ₹3,66,045 Crore in absolute terms. But it grew far slower than the rest of the market. A significant reason is the persistent return gap: Large Cap funds as a category have struggled to beat their benchmark net of fees, making the case for passive alternatives increasingly compelling for the large-cap allocation. ELSS lost 3.2 percentage points, falling from 10.0% to 6.8% — a predictable consequence of the new tax regime removing the Section 80C deduction advantage that was historically the primary reason investors chose ELSS over other equity funds. Focused Fund shed 1.6 percentage points, reflecting lower new launches and investor preference for broader diversification mandates.

In a hybrid, the story is Multi-Asset Allocation’s dominance. Multi Asset Allocation Fund gained 11.2 percentage points of hybrid AUM share — from 5.6% to 16.8% — making it the single largest share shift of any category across both equity and hybrid segments. ₹1,28,309 Crore of net inflows in three years, against a base of just ₹26,591 Crore, tells you this was genuine new allocation, not just market appreciation. On the other side, the traditional hybrid anchors gave ground: Balanced / Aggressive Hybrid lost 9.7 percentage points, and Dynamic Asset Allocation / Balanced Advantage lost 11.2 percentage points — both categories that had been the default “one-stop” solution for moderate-risk investors, now facing competition from Multi Asset funds that offer a more complete, gold-inclusive mandate. Arbitrage Fund grew sharply in share (from 14.1% to 24.5%), but this is driven almost entirely by short-term institutional and HNI parking of money around tax-efficient liquid alternatives, not by retail conviction. Its MTM effect was negative at -₹14,460 Crore, confirming that the AUM growth is purely flow-driven.

The MTM data adds a further dimension to reading these share shifts. A high % Effect — the proportion of AUM growth coming from market returns rather than net inflows — tells you a category is being held more than it is being bought fresh. Mid Cap’s 68% MTM effect and Large Cap’s 36% MTM effect sit at opposite ends of this spectrum: Mid Cap investors were rewarded handsomely and stayed; Large Cap investors received less appreciation relative to the broader market, and many chose to redeploy elsewhere. The share shift is therefore not just a story about new money — it is also a story about where existing investors decided to stay.

(The author is Viraj Gandhi, CEO of Samco Mutual Fund)

Pakistan has sent fighter jets and other military forces to Saudi Arabia to boost security under a defence pact between the two countries, the Saudi defence ministry said on Saturday, as Islamabad hosted talks aimed at ending the Iran war.

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said in a statement that Pakistani fighter jets and support aircraft had arrived at the King ⁠Abdulaziz Air Base in the country’s eastern province.

It said the Pakistani deployment aimed to strengthen joint defence cooperation and support regional and international security and stability.

The planes were sent after Iranian strikes hit key energy infrastructure and killed a Saudi national, three sources, including a senior Pakistani government official, told Reuters.

They were “not there to attack anyone”, said the Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

An Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia’s sprawling Jubail petrochemicals complex on Monday had raised concerns in Pakistan that the Gulf kingdom might retaliate, potentially jeopardizing the Iran peace talks, the three sources ⁠said.

The Pakistani deployment aimed to reassure Riyadh that Islamabad would help defend the kingdom from any further attacks, the sources said.

The Saudi government media office and Pakistan’s military did not respond to requests for comment.

DECADES-OLD SECURITY PARTNERSHIP

Riyadh and Islamabad signed a mutual defence pactin September 2025, committing both sides to treat any aggression against either ⁠country as an attack on both. That significantly deepened a decades-old security partnership.

Pakistan has long provided military support to the kingdom, including training and advisory deployments, while Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stepped in to support Pakistan ⁠financially during periods of economic stress.

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan was in Pakistan on Friday to demonstrate economic support for the country, a source familiar with the situation said.

In 2018, ⁠Riyadh announced a $6 billion support package for Pakistan, including a $3 billion deposit at the central bank and $3 billion worth of oil supplies on deferred payment.

Source: Reuters

— Agencies

Markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday proposed introducing gift cards or gift prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) for investments in mutual funds to improve financial inclusion through onboarding of new investors in the space.

Under the proposal, the purchaser of Gift PPI can gift the prepaid payment instrument to a recipient, who can then use the instrument to subscribe to mutual fund units, Sebi said in its consultation paper.

These PPIs will be funded only through electronic bank transfer or UPI from an Indian bank account with a validity period of one year from date of issuance.

Sebi suggested a cap of Rs 50,000 per investor per financial year for investments made through gift PPIs.

“The RTAs, on behalf of AMCs will track how much each investor has invested per AMC per financial year through Gift PPI, e-wallets and cash. If the transaction resulting from a Gift PPI redemption crosses Rs 50,000, the RTA will reject the transaction, and the PPI face value will be refunded to the issuer’s escrow account,” it added.

Traditionally, Gift cards and prepaid solutions have been used in retail purchases and over a period of time their adoption has increased driven by digital payments, offering instant delivery and enhanced security.

The consultation paper comes after the Sebi received a proposal from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) to consider allowing Gift PPI as an instrument to invest in units of mutual fund.According to Sebi, “Gift Card/ Gift PPI is expected to improve financial inclusion through on boarding of new investors in the mutual fund space.”

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought public comments on the proposals until April 14.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has issued a consultation paper to modify nomination norms for demat accounts and mutual fund folios, aimed at simplifying investor on-boarding and aligning processes with banking standards. Released on March 17, 2026, the proposal seeks to address operational challenges identified after the issuance of a previous circular dated January 10, 2025. The regulator has invited public comments on these suggestions until April 7, 2026.

SEBI has proposed making nomination the default choice for all single accounts or folios opened after a specified date. Under this framework, any investor who does not wish to nominate will be “specifically required to choose ‘opt-out of nomination'”. This move is intended to prevent the creation of unclaimed assets.

If an investor chooses to opt out, a pop-up message explaining the benefits of nomination and a declaration will be displayed, and the investor must “provide consent in this pop-up message to opt-out from nomination”.

SEBI has also suggested reducing the mandatory information required for a nominee to only their name and the nature of the relationship with the investor.

Other details, such as address, mobile number, email, and the percentage share of each nominee, are proposed to be optional. The regulator noted that “the process of furnishing so many details of the nominee is onerous for investors” and has led to many dropping off during on-boarding. If a percentage share is not specified, the assets will be “apportioned among the nominees equally”.

Regarding the number of nominees, SEBI has proposed increasing the limit to four, matching current banking norms, instead of the ten previously suggested in the January 2025 circular. Data reviewed by the regulator showed that a very low percentage of investors actually opted for more than one nominee.

SEBI stated that “increasing the nominees to 10 may create a strain on the system leading to operational issues”. While the nominee limit may increase, the maximum number of joint holders in an account will remain three.The consultation paper further addresses the role of nominees during an investor’s lifetime. The industry had represented that a facility allowing nominees to operate accounts in case of investor incapacitation was “challenging due to high implementation costs and the difficulty in maintaining audit trails”.

SEBI observed that “a nominee becomes trustee of the assets only upon the demise of the investor”. Consequently, it has proposed that the existing Power of Attorney mechanism should be used for situations where an investor is incapacitated but still has the capacity to contract.

Shares of PB Fintech, the parent company of Policybazaar, saw large block deals worth about Rs 695 crore on Friday, with Goldman Sachs, mutual funds and foreign institutional investors picking up shares from an existing investor.

According to exchange data, Tencent Cloud Europe BV offloaded 48.40 lakh shares of PB Fintech at a price of Rs 1,435 per share, translating into a total deal value of about Rs 695 crore. Tencent Cloud Europe owned about 96.8 lakh shares or 2.09% in the company at the end of December quarter.

The shares were absorbed by a mix of domestic and global institutional investors through multiple block trades on the NSE. Among the key buyers was Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE, which purchased 7.01 lakh shares, while another 5.64 lakh shares were bought through Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE via offshore derivative instruments. Together, the two transactions represent a purchase of about Rs 182 crore at the block deal price.

Other prominent buyers included DSP Mutual Fund, Mirae Asset Mutual Fund, Tata Mutual Fund, and several foreign institutional investors such as Societe Generale through ODI structures and funds managed by Schroders.

Multiple schemes of Mirae Asset Mutual Fund participated in the transaction, collectively purchasing several tranches of PB Fintech shares in the block window. Tata Mutual Fund also acquired over 3.4 lakh shares across two trades, while Schroder-managed funds picked up more than 6 lakh shares combined.

The block deal suggests continued institutional interest in PB Fintech despite periodic stake sales by early investors and strategic shareholders.

PB Fintech operates the digital insurance marketplace Policybazaar and credit marketplace Paisabazaar, which allows users to compare and purchase financial products such as insurance policies and loans online.The company has grown into one of India’s largest online insurance distribution platforms, connecting consumers with insurance providers through a digital marketplace model. Over the years, PB Fintech has expanded its product offerings and strengthened its presence in the broader fintech ecosystem.

Two of the biggest questions dominating investors’ minds now are whether gold will continue to outperform stocks and what the target for the Nifty is in 2026. DSP Mutual Fund has addressed these and 10 other topics in its latest NETRA report, taking direct aim at some of the market’s most persistent beliefs and arguing that investors anchor too heavily to myths about gold, GDP, flows, smallcaps, SIP timing and index targets instead of hard data.

Here are 12 such myths:

1) Gold is dead money and can’t beat equities

The widely held view that gold is a useless “pet rock” that always trails equities is belied by 21st-century data, where bullion has actually outperformed every major stock market in local currency terms, including India and the US. In India, only about a quarter of NSE 500 stocks have beaten gold on a market-cap-weighted basis over this period, making a zero-gold allocation look more like a bias than a rational decision.

2) Gold has replaced equities as the only asset worth owning

The reverse belief, that gold is now the only game in town, also fails the data test, as five-year rolling returns show equities beating gold around half the time in India and the US, and more often in Europe and Hong Kong. There have been long stretches when staying invested in diversified indices would have delivered better outcomes than holding just gold, reinforcing that bullion is a useful diversifier, not a one-way ticket to wealth.

3) Diversification dilutes returns and is “di-worse-ification”

The claim that spreading money across assets drags down performance is challenged by DSP’s back-tests showing a 50–20–15–15 mix of domestic equity, debt, international equity and gold delivering equity-like returns with much lower volatility across markets. Outside the US, this diversified basket has even beaten pure local equities in nominal terms over 20-year horizons, with significantly lower standard deviation in countries like India and China.

4) High GDP growth automatically means high stock returns

Investors often assume that fast-growing economies will automatically generate high equity returns, but 30-year, inflation-adjusted data show several high-growth markets, including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and China, where real equity returns have lagged real GDP growth or even turned negative. Stock markets ultimately reflect earnings growth, capital allocation and governance, and these can decouple from headline GDP when shocks, policy errors or dilution offset macro strength.

5) India can realistically grow to a $30-trillion economy by 2050

The popular projection that India will be a $30-trillion economy by 2050 assumes an 8.9% real GDP CAGR for 25 years, a pace the country has almost never sustained even over shorter stretches. With long-term real growth closer to 6% and only one five-year period, ending FY08, approaching the required trajectory, DSP argues that a more plausible outcome is nearer $20 trillion even under optimistic doubling-every-decade assumptions.

6) Relentless domestic and foreign flows make markets one-way

Another comforting idea is that abundant domestic SIP money and foreign inflows guarantee an up-only market, but flow data across large-, mid- and small-cap funds show that flows tend to surge after strong returns and fade when performance weakens. Even with massive cumulative FII and DII inflows in recent years, markets have often stalled or corrected, illustrating that flows generally follow returns rather than dictating them.

7) Top-performing funds will remain top performers

Many investors assume that recent winners will keep winning, yet DSP’s quartile analysis between 2013 and 2025 finds that 60% to 80% of top-quartile schemes over any three-year window slipped into lower quartiles over the next three years, with some cohorts seeing a 100% failure rate. This makes extrapolating a 20% CAGR fund into a “safe” 15% to 18% future return a risky shortcut given competition, style cycles and mean reversion.

8) Index targets give a reliable map for the year ahead

The ritual of setting Nifty and S&P 500 targets is treated as essential guidance, but over the past 25 years the median one-year-ahead S&P 500 forecast has never been negative, even though seven of those years ended down. Year-end targets for both indices have regularly missed actual outcomes by more than 10% in both directions, especially near peaks and troughs, showing they reflect prevailing mood more than any durable edge.

9) Starting valuation doesn’t matter if you’re “long term”

A popular comfort blanket is that, over long periods, entry valuations are irrelevant, yet Sensex versus debt charts across cycles show that buying at extreme price-to-earnings multiples can leave investors underperforming simple debt for a decade or more. In the early 1990s and post-2007 peaks, equity buyers effectively endured bond-like returns with equity-like volatility, undercutting the idea that time in the market always rescues expensive entries.

10) Small and midcaps always outperform largecaps

The notion that small- and mid-cap stocks inherently deliver superior long-term returns is complicated by DSP’s cycle analysis, which shows SMIDs generating huge alpha in upswings and then surrendering most of it in subsequent downswings. Two-year rolling alpha charts for mid- and small-cap indices versus the Sensex swing from strongly positive to sharply negative, suggesting their dominance is cyclical, not permanent.

11) Higher risk always guarantees higher return

The cliché that more risk necessarily means more return is challenged by low- and high-beta, as well as low- and high-volatility portfolios built from NSE data since 2007, where low-beta and low-volatility baskets actually delivered higher compounded returns. These lower-risk portfolios also suffered shallower drawdowns than their high-beta, high-volatility peers, aligning with global evidence that managing downside is crucial for compounding.

12) The success of a SIP depends heavily on when you start

Finally, investors often worry that starting a SIP at market highs will doom their returns, but Nifty 500 data on seven-year rolling SIPs starting at all-time highs, after 20% rallies and after 20% corrections show median outcomes clustered within about one percentage point of each other, around the low teens. For disciplined investors who stay invested over meaningful horizons, the precise starting level matters far less than consistency and time in the plan.

In pulling these threads together, DSP’s NETRA deck argues that the real edge in today’s market lies not in finding the perfect forecast for gold, Nifty or GDP, but in cutting through seductive narratives with data, respecting valuations, diversifying sensibly and tuning out excess noise that has turned toxic for many investors.

Also read: ‘Too cheap to ignore’: Jefferies initiates coverage on Emmvee Photovoltaic, sees 70% upside

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

SBI Mutual Fund on Monday divested a 2.43 per cent stake in gaming and e-sports company Nazara Technologies for Rs 216 crore through open market transactions.

According to the bulk deal data available on the stock exchanges, SBI Mutual Fund (MF) offloaded 45.09 lakh shares of Nazara Technologies on the NSE, while it sold 45 lakh scrips, amounting to a combined 2.43 per cent stake in the gaming and e-sports company.

The shares were disposed of in the price range of Rs 240.03-240.18 apiece, taking the transaction value to Rs 216.32 crore.

After the latest transaction, SBI MF’s holding in Nazara Technologies has come down to 3.35 per cent from 5.78 per cent.

Details of the buyers of Nazara Technologies’ shares could not be ascertained on the exchanges.

Shares of Nazara Technologies climbed 6.68 per cent to close at Rs 253.05 apiece on the BSE, while the scrip of the company rose 6.15 per cent to finish at Rs 252 per piece on the NSE.