The blog
How mutual funds actually work — the returns, the risk, the costs, and the maths underneath. No recommendations, no commissions, no tips.
Direct plan or Regular plan: what the difference actually costs
Same fund, same manager, same holdings. One pays a distributor out of your money and one does not. Over twenty years that is not a rounding error.
Growth or IDCW: why the payout option's returns look so much worse
The IDCW option's NAV has had money taken out of it. Any return computed from NAV alone will understate it — sometimes by eight percentage points a year.
CAGR, XIRR and rolling returns: three answers to three different questions
Three numbers, three different questions. Most arguments about fund returns are really arguments about which of the three somebody quoted.
The expense ratio: what one percent takes over ten years
It is already deducted before the NAV you see. That is why it feels like it costs nothing — and why so few people ever work out what it took.
Sharpe, Sortino, Beta and Alpha, without the jargon
Four numbers that get quoted constantly and explained rarely. Each asks a narrow question — and each is easy to misread as something grander.
Three funds, one portfolio: what overlap actually looks like
Four large cap funds can be, between them, one large cap fund. The filings show it plainly — if you put them side by side.
How a NAV is calculated, and why it is the wrong number to compare
A fund at ₹12 is not cheaper than one at ₹600. The NAV is a unit of measurement, not a price tag — and the confusion costs people money.
What a monthly portfolio filing shows, and what it hides
The filing is the most honest thing a fund publishes about itself. It is also a photograph taken on one day of the month, and it is easy to read more into it than is there.