Every fund has to sit in one of 42 categories. The category decides what the fund can buy, which index it is measured against, and how far it can fall. Pick a family below and open any category.
Every category above names an index. The names look like code, but each part means something specific. Here is what the parts mean, so the benchmark on your fund's factsheet stops being a jumble of letters.
Total Return Index. It counts the dividends companies pay, treated as reinvested, on top of the share price. A price-only index shows a lower number, which would make any fund compared against it look better than it is. Since 2018, funds must use TRI.
Companies are ranked by market value twice a year, and the index names follow that ranking:
A ratio like 50:25:25 means the index was re-weighted to hold that split of large, mid and small.
Two separate risks, written as one code. The letter is credit risk, meaning the chance a borrower does not repay. The numeral is interest rate risk, meaning how much the price moves when rates change.
The average wait, in years, to get your money back from a bond portfolio, counting the interest paid along the way. Roughly: if rates rise 1%, a portfolio with duration 5 falls about 5%, and rises about that much if rates fall. Most debt categories are defined by duration bands, so the band tells you the risk.
CRISIL Hybrid 85+15 Conservative is 85% debt and 15% equity, not the other way round. CRISIL Hybrid 35+65 Aggressive is 35% debt and 65% equity. Read it the wrong way and you will misjudge how much risk you are taking.
Each category above lists its worst 12 months. Here is what those falls look like over time, using the Nifty 50 TRI, the index most Indian equity is measured against. The best year on record, 2009, came immediately after the worst, 2008. The people who earned the 2009 return are the people who did not sell in 2008.
Calendar year returns for the Nifty 50 Total Return Index, 2005 to 2025, rounded. Sources differ slightly on 2009, reporting between about 75.8% and 77.6%. 2026 is incomplete and left out. We show one index rather than a best case for all 42 categories because the debt and hybrid benchmarks do not publish comparable best period figures.
The growth figure is what the market gave everyone who stayed invested. The worst 12 months is what you had to sit through to get it. If a fall of that size would make you sell, you would not have received the return either, so the category is not right for you regardless of what it has returned.
Choosing a calmer category and staying in it beats choosing a bolder one and leaving at the bottom.
*Long run growth is the approximate 10 year return per year of the category's benchmark or category average as of July 2026. Worst 12 months is that benchmark's worst one year period, mostly the 2008 to 2009 crash. Figures are indicative and rounded. Riskometer labels are the category norm, and each scheme publishes its own every month. Category rules are summarised, so check the SEBI circular and the scheme document before acting.
