mutual fund factsheet meaning

A factsheet is the short document every Indian AMC publishes monthly for each of its schemes, setting out the top holdings, sector allocation, AUM, expense ratio, portfolio turnover and returns. It is the primary source on what a fund actually owns, as opposed to what its name or its star rating implies. AMCs and AMFI publish factsheets free, and SEBI mandates the disclosures they carry.

what does 200 percent portfolio turnover mean

It means the fund traded the equivalent of its entire portfolio twice over during the year. Turnover is a real cost — brokerage, STT and impact cost on every trade — and it is paid out of the fund’s assets before the NAV you are shown, so you never receive a bill for it. High turnover is not automatically bad, but the strategy has to be earning back what the churn costs.

the total value of investments a mutual fund scheme manages is called its

Assets under management, or AUM. It appears on every factsheet and matters most at the extremes: a very large smallcap fund cannot buy small companies in meaningful size without moving their prices, while a very small scheme is more exposed to a few large investors redeeming at once.

how do I check if my mutual funds hold the same stocks

Pull the monthly factsheet for each fund you own and lay the top-ten holdings side by side. If more than half the names repeat, you hold fewer distinct bets than you hold funds — effectively one portfolio with several expense ratios attached to it. This portfolio overlap is the most common finding when people read their own factsheets for the first time.

rolling returns vs since inception return

Rolling returns run the same holding-period calculation from every possible start date, while a since-inception figure reflects exactly one start date — the day the fund launched. Since-inception numbers flatter schemes that happened to launch near a market bottom, because they include an early surge no current investor could have participated in. Rolling five-year and ten-year returns show the range an ordinary investor starting on an ordinary day actually experienced.

Reading a mutual fund factsheet

Every fund publishes a monthly factsheet, and almost nobody opens it. It is two pages, it is free, and it answers the questions the star rating never does — what does this fund actually own, how often does it churn, and how much does it resemble the other funds you already hold?

What is on it, and what each number is for

Item	What it tells you	What to watch
Top 10 holdings	Where the money actually is	Compare across your funds — overlap is the usual surprise
Sector allocation	The bet the fund is really making	A “diversified” fund with 40% in financials is a financials bet
AUM	Size of the fund	A very large smallcap fund cannot buy small companies meaningfully
Portfolio turnover	How much is bought and sold each year	200% means the whole portfolio changed twice — costs you pay
Expense ratio	Annual charge	Check you are in the Direct plan
Number of stocks	Concentration	25 names is a conviction fund; 80 is closer to an index with a fee
Rolling returns	Performance across many start dates	Far more honest than a single since-inception figure

Portfolio turnover, and what it costs you

Turnover measures how much of the portfolio was traded during the year. It is a cost you never see, because it is paid from the fund's assets before the NAV you are shown.

Worked example

Two funds, same gross return

₹10 lakh invested, 13% gross

Fund A turnoverRoughly a quarter of the portfolio traded25%

Fund B turnoverThe whole portfolio traded nearly twice180%

Estimated trading drag, ABrokerage, STT, impact cost~0.15%

Estimated trading drag, BSame costs, applied far more often~1.0%

Over 15 yearsFrom churn alone, before the expense ratioRoughly ₹2 lakh difference

High turnover is not automatically bad — some strategies require it. But it must be earning its cost, and the factsheet is the only place you can see how much churning is happening at all.

Loading interactive demo…

Set 15 years and compare 12% against 11%. That one point is roughly what a high expense ratio plus heavy churn removes.

Rolling returns, not point-to-point

A "5-year return of 18%" depends entirely on which day the five years started. Rolling returns run the same calculation from every possible start date, which shows the range of outcomes rather than one lucky window.

A ten-minute annual review

1
Pull the factsheet for every fund you hold
One PDF each, from the AMC site.
2
Lay the top-ten holdings side by side
Count how many names repeat. More than half repeating means you hold fewer distinct bets than funds.
3
Check turnover and expense ratio
Both are costs. If turnover is high, the strategy needs to justify it.
4
Confirm the plan says Direct
The cheapest single fix available, and people discover it here more often than anywhere else.

Check yourself

You hold four equity mutual funds. Their top ten holdings are largely the same companies. What does this mean?

Simple bhasha mein

Chaar fund, ek hi portfolio

Aapke paas chaar equity fund hain — lagta hai risk baat diya. Factsheet kholo aur chaaron ke top 10 stock likh lo. Aksar wahi dus naam nikalte hain. Woh diversification nahi hai — woh ek portfolio hai jiske chaar expense ratio aap bhar rahe ho.

What to remember

The factsheet is free, monthly, and answers what a star rating cannot.
Compare top-ten holdings across your funds — overlap is the usual surprise.
Portfolio turnover is a cost paid before the NAV you see.
Rolling returns are far more honest than since-inception figures.
A ten-minute annual review of your own factsheets catches most portfolio problems.

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Common questions

Short, direct answers to what people ask about this topic.

mutual fund factsheet meaning: A factsheet is the short document every Indian AMC publishes monthly for each of its schemes, setting out the top holdings, sector allocation, AUM, expense ratio, portfolio turnover and returns. It is the primary source on what a fund actually owns, as opposed to what its name or its star rating implies. AMCs and AMFI publish factsheets free, and SEBI mandates the disclosures they carry.
what does 200 percent portfolio turnover mean: It means the fund traded the equivalent of its entire portfolio twice over during the year. Turnover is a real cost — brokerage, STT and impact cost on every trade — and it is paid out of the fund’s assets before the NAV you are shown, so you never receive a bill for it. High turnover is not automatically bad, but the strategy has to be earning back what the churn costs.
the total value of investments a mutual fund scheme manages is called its: Assets under management, or AUM. It appears on every factsheet and matters most at the extremes: a very large smallcap fund cannot buy small companies in meaningful size without moving their prices, while a very small scheme is more exposed to a few large investors redeeming at once.
how do I check if my mutual funds hold the same stocks: Pull the monthly factsheet for each fund you own and lay the top-ten holdings side by side. If more than half the names repeat, you hold fewer distinct bets than you hold funds — effectively one portfolio with several expense ratios attached to it. This portfolio overlap is the most common finding when people read their own factsheets for the first time.
rolling returns vs since inception return: Rolling returns run the same holding-period calculation from every possible start date, while a since-inception figure reflects exactly one start date — the day the fund launched. Since-inception numbers flatter schemes that happened to launch near a market bottom, because they include an early surge no current investor could have participated in. Rolling five-year and ten-year returns show the range an ordinary investor starting on an ordinary day actually experienced.