Fund Pick: HDFC Flexi Cap Fund is enduring innings at the crease

Launched in January 1995, the HDFC Flexi Cap Fund has featured in the top 30th percentile of the flexi-cap category of CRISIL Mutual Fund Ranking (CMFR) for three consecutive quarters through December 2022.

The fund’s month-end assets under management increased to Rs 31,673 crore in February 2023, from Rs 21,417 crore in February 2020.

Roshi Jain has been managing the fund since July 2022.

The investment objective of the scheme is to generate capital appreciation from a portfolio predominantly invested in equity and equity-related instruments.

Trailing returns

The fund has outperformed the benchmark (Nifty 500 Total Returns Index) and its peers (funds ranked under the flexi-cap category in December 2022 CMFR) in the past one-, two-, three-, five-, seven-, and 10-year trailing periods.

To put this into perspective, Rs 10,000 invested in the fund, on March 13, 2003, would have increased to Rs 4.92 lakh on March 16, 2023, at an annualised rate of 21.55 per cent, compared with the category and the benchmark, which would have grown to Rs 3.55 lakh (19.52 per cent per annum) and Rs 2.62 lakh (17.74 per cent per annum), respectively.

A systematic investment plan is a disciplined mode of investing offered by mutual funds through which one can invest a certain amount at regular intervals.

A monthly investment of Rs 10,000 for the past 10 years in the fund, totalling Rs 12 lakh, would have grown to Rs 24.92 lakh (14.1 per cent annualised returns), compared with Rs 22.77 lakh (12.4 per cent annualised returns) in the benchmark as on March 16, 2022.

Portfolio analysis

In the past three years, the fund took exposure across market capitalisations, with predominant allocation to large-cap stocks (averaging 79.88 per cent).

Allocations to mid-cap and small-cap stocks averaged 10.58 per cent and 6.34 per cent, respectively.

The portfolio was diversified across 33 sectors. Banks dominated, with an average allocation of 26.01 per cent, followed by information technology-software (11.94 per cent), finance (10.34 per cent), power (8.44 per cent), and pharmaceutical (7.75 per cent).

During the period under analysis, the fund took exposure to 89 stocks and held 26 consistently.

The key contributing stocks to the portfolio were State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Reliance Industries, and Larsen & Toubro.