How every figure is computed — and what this product does not claim

1. Data sources and the hierarchy

Every important data point is stored with its value, source, source URL, observation date, collection date, frequency, method, confidence and version. Sources are ranked; a lower tier never overrides a higher one for the same fact.

On file today: scheme identity, the AMFI category heading, the daily NAV and the NAV history for 864 scheme codes across 432 funds (19,10,384 dated observations), together with the cost, size, portfolio and management records described in section 14. A field with no primary-source record is shown as Insufficient data. Nothing is estimated in its place.

2. Returns

Every return in a fund's research is point-to-point from AMFI NAVs. Up to one year the figure is the simple change; three years and longer are annualised (CAGR). "₹1 lakh invested" and "₹100 over five years" are the same NAV growth applied to a round sum, in the Direct plan's Growth option.

• Point-to-point. NAV at the end of the series against the NAV on or just before the date the stated number of months earlier (up to 7 calendar days earlier, otherwise Insufficient). Under one year the figure is the simple change; one year and longer it is also annualised.
• CAGR. (NAV_end / NAV_start)^{1 / years} − 1, with years = calendar days / 365.25.
• "Since 2015". From the first NAV held in the dataset, not from launch; the label says so.
• Growth vs IDCW. An IDCW option's NAV falls on each payout, so its NAV series understates total return; no return is computed for it. Where both options exist, the fund's research prints the observed three-year gap between the Direct Growth and Direct IDCW NAV series. That gap measures payouts, not skill.

3. Rolling returns and consistency

A headline CAGR depends on when it starts. Rolling windows take every week since 2015 as a start and show the whole spread of outcomes an investor actually got, so the answer does not rest on one start date.

For each window length (1, 3, 5 years) every start date stepping one week from the first NAV is taken; the annualised return to the date one window later is recorded. The page shows the number of windows, the worst, the 25th percentile, the median, the 75th percentile, the best, and the share of windows that were negative. At least 12 windows are required; otherwise Insufficient.

4. Risk

In plain words: the worst fall is the deepest drop from a high to a later low; recovery is how long it took to climb back; volatility is how much the NAV moves from day to day. The "movement" dots in a fund's research use this site's own scale of volatility. They are not the SEBI riskometer, which is shown separately.

• Volatility. Standard deviation of daily log returns over the trailing three years (and over the whole history), annualised by √250. Requires at least 30 daily returns.
• Downside deviation. Root-mean-square of the negative daily log returns only (target 0% a day), annualised by √250.
• Maximum drawdown. The largest fall from any running peak to a later NAV; the peak and trough dates are shown.
• Recovery period. Calendar days from that trough to the first NAV at or above the previous peak; "not yet recovered" when it has not happened.

5. Benchmark policy

A fund is compared only with its official benchmark — the index its Scheme Information Document or AMC factsheet names — and only when that benchmark's own historical total-return series is on file with provenance. Both conditions must hold; otherwise the fund's benchmarkComparisonStatus is INSUFFICIENT_DATA and no relative figure is shown. No category index and no index-fund proxy is ever substituted: a Nifty 50 series is not a fair yardstick for a mid-cap, small-cap, flexi-cap, ELSS, hybrid or debt scheme, and a comparison built on the wrong yardstick is worse than none. Evidence over coverage.

Statuses per fund: NAME_UNVERIFIED (no document read yet), NAME_DERIVED (index funds only — the index is stated in the scheme's own name; shown as derived, never as verified), NAME_VERIFIED (name read from the SID/factsheet, source and date recorded), SERIES_AVAILABLE (verified name plus a Tier-1/Tier-2 series). When a series exists the engine computes fund-vs-benchmark CAGR on shared dates, rolling one-year windows ahead of the benchmark, and tracking error (annualised standard deviation of the daily return difference) for passive funds.

Returns as published by AMFI

Where AMFI's Fund Performance disclosure covers a scheme, the fund's research quotes the fund's and the benchmark's returns for one, three, five and ten years exactly as AMFI states them, with the date and a link to the source. Returns over one year are annualised by AMFI. They are quoted, not computed here; the only figure this site works out is the difference, Direct plan minus benchmark. Rolling-return, drawdown and tracking-error comparisons need the benchmark's own daily series. Where that is not on file they are not shown, and no other index is used in its place. Past performance does not indicate future returns.

Benchmark coverage today

Benchmark coverage matrix — what is missing, per benchmark

Index providers, as investigated on 2026-09-18

Both index providers' terms restrict republishing and automated collection; publicly viewable index values do not carry redistribution rights. Their adapters are ready (lib/ii-benchmark-providers.js) and nothing from them reaches production until a licence is in place. The one Tier-1 route open today is the AMC's own factsheet, which states the official benchmark and its point-to-point returns — those are quoted with the document's date and source, never recomputed.

Machine-readable: benchmark-coverage.json · benchmark-matrix.json. Returns, rolling returns, volatility, drawdown and recovery do not depend on a benchmark and are computed for every fund from its verified NAV.

6. Direct vs Regular

Both plans of a scheme hold the same portfolio. The Direct plan carries no distributor commission, so its NAV grows faster by roughly the commission each year. The gap is measured directly from the two NAV series as the three-year CAGR difference on shared dates. It is the observed gap. The published expense ratios of the two plans are shown beside it where they are on file.

7. Data freshness

Every dated observation is classed against a window for its kind — NAV: fresh ≤ 3 days, recent ≤ 10; portfolio: fresh ≤ 45, recent ≤ 75 — as FRESH, RECENT, STALE or INSUFFICIENT. Stale data is labelled as older than the preferred window; it is never shown as current.

8. Versioning

NAV snapshots are immutable: a re-run of the ingestion writes a new snapshot only when AMFI's latest date has moved on, and the previous file is kept under historical/. The engine has a version (1.1.0); the dataset has a version (2026-10-31); both are printed on every page.

9. Goal and retirement arithmetic

• Projection. Lump sum today plus a monthly contribution at the start of each month, compounded monthly at the equivalent of the stated annual rate; the monthly amount (and any annual lump sum) rises by the step-up every twelve months.
• Scenarios. 8%, 10% and 12% a year, labelled illustrative. They are not expected returns, forecasts or promises; you may add your own rate.
• Required SIP. The level monthly amount (with the same step-up) that reaches the target under the scenario, by linear scaling of a unit SIP. Required step-up is found by bisection between 0% and 50%.
• Inflation. Never applied silently. The default (6%) is an assumption shown in the input. A nominal target is also shown in today's purchasing power: target / (1 + inflation)^years.
• Retirement corpus. Today's monthly expenses × 12, inflated to retirement, less any pension; the present value at retirement of that amount growing with inflation for the chosen number of years while the corpus earns the post-retirement rate (growing-annuity formula, annual). A sensitivity table moves inflation ±1 point and duration ±5 years.

9b. Research starting points by horizon

When a goal or retirement question gives a horizon, the page lists categories worth researching for that horizon — the SEBI categories whose mandate matches how long the money can stay invested — and, under each, the funds on file that stand in the top third of the category on a transparent dimension. It is category-level education, the same for everyone with that horizon; it names no fund as a pick and is not a recommendation to buy any scheme.

10. Riskometer and categories

Categories are AMFI's own headings, which follow SEBI's categorisation circular; the engine never reassigns a scheme. The riskometer uses SEBI's six levels — Low, Low to Moderate, Moderate, Moderately High, High, Very High — and is shown only when a scheme's own label has been ingested from its factsheet or SID. No level is assigned by this site.

11. What "best" means here

A question like "best midcap fund" is treated as a research question. The answer is "it depends on what you are optimising for", followed by a transparent shortlist: each fund in the category is listed with the dimensions on which it stands in the top third of the set — rolling 3-year median, share of positive 3-year windows, shallower drawdown, lower volatility, faster recovery, larger Direct-plan advantage — with the value beside each. Nothing is combined into a score, no fund is ranked first, and the dimensions with insufficient data are named.

12. What this product does not claim

• It does not recommend buying, selling or holding any scheme, nor an allocation.
• It does not forecast returns; every rate in the planners is a scenario you can change.
• It does not estimate or fill missing data — expense ratio, AUM, holdings, manager, riskometer and benchmark figures are absent until the Tier-1 record is on file.
• It does not compute your tax. The after-tax figures are an illustration on a round sum under stated assumptions (section 13).
• It stores nothing you type, sends nothing anywhere, and asks for no PAN, Aadhaar, bank or broker details.
• Personalised investment advice in India is regulated (SEBI Investment Adviser and Research Analyst regulations); this site provides research, education and scenario arithmetic, and the boundary is deliberate.

13. The after-tax illustration

Each fund's research shows what ₹1,00,000 placed in the Direct plan three and five years before the NAV date would leave after tax if sold on that date by a resident individual. It is an illustration of how tax changes the return, not advice for your own sale. The rules are those of the Income-tax Act, 2025 for tax year 2026-27, and the rates are the same ones the capital gains calculator uses.

• Equity-oriented funds (equity schemes, ELSS, aggressive hybrid, arbitrage, equity savings, and index funds on Indian equity indices): long-term after 12 months, taxed at 12.5% on the gain above ₹1,25,000 a year; 20% if held for less. The page shows the result with the exemption unused and with it already used.
• Specified (debt) funds (debt schemes and conservative hybrid): units bought on or after 1 April 2023 are taxed at your slab rate however long they are held. The 20% and 30% slabs are shown.
• No figure for balanced advantage, multi asset and other funds whose equity share moves. Their tax follows the share of equity actually held, which the scheme's own document states.
• Assumptions. This is your only capital gain in the year; no surcharge (total income up to ₹50 lakh); 4% cess is included; growth is the Direct plan's NAV growth; exit load, if any, is not deducted.

14. Cost, size, portfolio and management

These figures come from disclosures, not from the NAV. Each is printed with the date it describes and the date it was collected, and the sources table at the foot of every fund's research lists them.

Every record passes a plausibility check before it is shown. One that fails is held for review and the field reads Insufficient data. A fund is listed on a category page only when its expense ratio, fund size, manager and riskometer are all on file.

15. The funds listed beside a fund

Each fund's research lists a few other funds to read beside it. They are neighbours, not recommendations. Funds in the same SEBI category, from other houses, show what a peer group did over the same years, which is the fair comparison. Funds from the same house, in other categories, show how that house's other schemes behaved. The lists are chosen alphabetically, starting from the fund's own position, so they are the same on every build. Nothing is ranked.