How to Choose Best Equity Mutual Funds to Invest

Equity Mutual Funds are one of the popular instruments for Investing. It primarily invests your money in shares/stocks of different companies. The fund manager allocates funds in these companies based on the fund’s investment objective. These funds are ideally suited for investors who have a moderate to high risk appetite and are looking for long-term Investment plan. But, when it comes to choosing one ideal equity fund it can be a difficult task. With hundreds of equity mutual funds and each claiming the best returns, it is quite puzzling to zero in on one. And the tasks get difficult when you further have to choose a fund on your own. To make the process easy and quite simple for you, we have listed down the important parameters that will help you to list down good funds to invest.

Parameters to Pick Best Equity Funds

Following are the qualitative and quantitative measures to pick the ideal Equity Funds.

Qualitative Measures

Know your Fund Manager

The credit of performance of a Mutual Fund scheme lies with the fund manager. A fund manager is responsible for making investment decisions for the fund’s Portfolio. So, investors should go through the performance of the funds managed by the particular fund manager, especially during the tough Market phases. Also, investors should give more priority to a fund manager who has an experience of managing a similar kind of funds, for example- small and mid cap. Going for a fund manager who has been consistent over his career is a preferred choice.

Fund House Reputation

While choosing the Best Equity Mutual Funds to invest, always look at the quality & reputation of the fund house. A fund house with a long-standing record, large assets under management, star funds or good performing fund etc., is the one to invest in. Hence a fund house having a strong presence in the financial Industry with a consistent track record should be ideally preferred.

Quantitative Measures

Fund Performance

An investor should do a fair assessment of the funds’ performances for over a period of time. Also, it is suggested to go for a fund that consistently beats its benchmark over 4-5 years, additionally, one should see each period and see if the fund is able to beat the benchmark or not.

Size of the Fund

Investors should always go for a fund that is neither too big nor too small in size. While there is no perfect definition and relation between the size of the fund, it is said that both too small and too large, can hinder a fund’s performance. Thus, while choosing a fund, it is advisable to go for the one whose AUM (Asset Under Management) is approximately same as the category.

Expense Ratio

Investors who have Mutual Fund Investments have to bear certain charges like operation costs, management fees, etc., charged by the Asset Management Company (AMC). Generally, the expense ratio is higher for schemes that are actively managed than it is for passively managed schemes (such as Index Funds or ETFs). As per the SEBI rules, an expense ratio for equity funds are a minimum of 2.5%.However, the expense ratio is something which should not supersede other important factors such as fund performance etc. It is better to pay a higher expense ratio in a fund knowing that it will beat it competitors by a good margin.

Ratio Analysis

Some of the important ratios to measure fund performance are:

• Alpha– Alpha is a measure of the success of your investment or rather outperformance against the benchmark. It measures on how much the fund or stock has performed in the general market. A positive alpha of 1 means that the fund has outperformed its benchmark index by 1%, while a negative alpha of -1 would indicate that the fund has produced 1% lower returns than its market benchmark. So, basically, an investor’s strategy should be to buy securities with positive alpha.

• Beta– It measures Volatility in a stock’s price or fund relative to a benchmark and is denoted in positive or negative figures. A Beta of 1 signifies that the stock’s price moves in line with the market, beta of a greater than 1 designates that the stock is riskier than the market, and a beta of less than 1 means that the stock is less risky than the market. So, lower beta is better in a falling market. In a rising market, high-beta is better.

• Standard Deviation (SD- In simple terms, SD is a statistical measure representing the volatility or risk in an instrument. The higher the SD, higher will be the fluctuations in the returns.

• Sharpe Ratio– Sharpe Ratio measures returns (both negative & positive) with respect to the risk taken. Here the risk is defined by the Standard Deviation. A higher Sharpe ratio means, a higher return without too much risk. Thus, while investing, investors should choose a fund that shows a higher Sharpe ratio.

• Sortino Ratio– The Sortino Ratio is a variation of Sharpe Ratio. But, unlike Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio considers only the downside or negative return. Such a ratio is helpful for investors to assess risk in a better manner than just looking at the returns to the total volatility. Upside Capture Ratio & Downside Capture Ratio– Upside/downside capture ratio guide an investor- whether a fund is outperformed i.e. gained more or lost less than a broad market benchmark- during the phase of the market upside (strong) or downside (weak), and more importantly by how much. Well, an upside ratio of over 100 means that a given fund has beaten the benchmark during the period of positive returns. And a downside ratio of less than 100 shows that a given fund has lost less than its benchmark during the phase of dull returns. So, generally, investors should go for a fund that has a lower downside capture ratio and a higher upside capture ratio.

Best Equity Mutual Funds 2025

Considering the above parameters, we have shortlisted some of the best equity funds to invest in 2025.