An evaluation of equity diversified mutual funds: The case of the Indian market

The mutual funds industry grew successfully and brought about substantial returns to the investors and the public sector. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of Indian equity diversified mutual funds. A subsidiary aim is to analyse the relationship between risk and return of these funds based on total risk and systematic risk. Two different overlapping data sets have been used in this paper, from 2000 to 2009, covering seventeen mutual funds. The evaluation relies on three techniques, namely, the Treynor, the Sharp and the Jensen techniques, which have been applied in similar research by Noulas et al. (2005). Moreover, these techniques have been compared with the Indian market index (BSESENSEX) to evaluate the performance of each individual mutual fund.

The results indicate a positive relation between risk and return of these mutual funds. Also, beta’s values are less than one in the selected sample. Furthermore, there is evidence of higher actual returns compared with expected returns over the selected period(s). With the imminent liberalisation of the financial market in developing countries, especially the Indian market, the findings of this paper could encourage investors to invest in international mutual funds. They could expand their financial operations in the Indian market, which could offer advantages of diversification and professionalism to the investors.