2025 mutual fund scorecard: Top performers, laggards, and key surprises

Calendar year 2025 has been marked by uneven equity performance, sharp style rotation, and renewed interest in hard assets and global diversification. While frontline indices delivered moderate returns, stock selection and category choice became critical, leading to wide dispersion across mutual fund categories.

Diversified equity strategies with flexibility and valuation discipline clearly outperformed, while excessive exposure to frothy segments hurt returns.

Here is the scorecard on the performance of mutual funds in the year 2025, as of 19 December.

Among mutual fund categories, going by category average, the top category by performance was silver funds. Following them in order were gold funds, international funds, auto and transportation funds, and banking sector funds.

Silver funds delivered a category average return of 128%, gold funds 71%, diversified international funds 28%, auto and transportation funds 16%, and banking sector funds 14.5%.

Here’s a closer look at top performers across individual categories in the regular option.

Equity funds

Among equity categories, large and midcap funds emerged as consistent performers, benefiting from exposure to quality mid-sized companies without taking extreme risk. Flexicap and focused funds also stood out, as fund managers actively shifted allocations across market caps.

In contrast, smallcap funds struggled, as richly valued stocks corrected sharply. While a few funds managed to protect the downside, the category as a whole underperformed broader markets.

Interestingly, value and contra funds made a quiet comeback in 2025, helped by rotation into banking, infrastructure, and select PSU stocks.

Large cap funds: Performance was stable and the best among the three market-cap segments. The key drivers were valuation discipline and earnings visibility. The leader among large cap funds was ICICI Pru Large Cap Fund, which delivered 10.1%. This was followed by Mirae Asset Large Cap Fund, SBI Large Cap Fund, Aditya Birla SL Large Cap Fund, and Nippon India Large Cap Fund, delivering between 8.9% and 7.9%.

Large and midcap funds: One of the strongest diversified categories in 2025. The category benefited from select midcap participation without excessive risk. ICICI Pru led the category with 12.13%. Other top performers were SBI Large and Midcap, Mirae Asset Large and Midcap, Franklin India Large and Mid Cap, and Helios Large and Mid Cap Fund, with returns ranging from 8.4% to 6.6%.

Midcap funds: Strong absolute returns but high volatility. Stock picking proved critical, leading to sharp divergence between top and bottom quartile funds. ICICI Pru Midcap Fund led with 8.23%, followed by Mirae Asset Midcap, Invesco India Midcap, HDFC Mid Cap Fund, and Tata Mid Cap Fund, with returns from 6.6% to 4.2%. The bottom performer delivered -11.78%.

Smallcap funds: Clear underperformers among diversified equity categories. Valuation excesses corrected sharply, and stock prices plunged. Good stock pickers remained outliers. Quantum Small Cap Fund topped the category with a positive return of 1.81%, the only fund in the category with positive returns. This was followed by Sundaram Small Cap, HDFC Small Cap, PGIM India Small Cap, and ICICI Pru Smallcap Fund, with returns between -1.56% and -1.88%.

Flexicap and focused funds: Among the best risk-adjusted performers. Tactical allocation across market caps paid off, particularly for funds with a higher large-cap bias. Among flexicap funds, HDFC Flexi Cap topped with 10.11%, followed by Aditya Birla SL Flexi Cap, Tata Flexi Cap, ICICI Pru Flexicap, and Bandhan Flexi Cap, delivering between 9.8% and 8.1%. In the focused category, ICICI Pru Focused Equity delivered the highest return of 14.6%. This was followed by SBI Focused, Kotak Focused, HDFC Focused, and Aditya Birla SL Focused, with returns ranging from 14.5% to 9.1%.

Multi cap funds: Benefited from mandatory exposure across all market caps. Better downside protection than pure mid or smallcap strategies gave the category an edge. Mirae Asset Multicap Fund topped with 6.6%, followed by Groww Multicap, Bank of India Multi Cap, WhiteOak Capital Multi Cap, and Kotak Multicap Fund, delivering between 6.1% and 4%.

Value and contra funds: Quiet comeback category in 2025. Favoured by rotation into cyclicals and undervalued sectors. ICICI Pru Value Fund topped the category with 12.8%. DSP Value, HDFC Value, Groww Value, and Templeton India Value Fund followed with returns between 9.2% and 5.8%.

ELSS (tax saver funds): Moderate but steady performance. Funds with value and flexi-style mandates led the pack. HDFC ELSS Tax Saver Fund and Aditya Birla SL ELSS Tax Saver were the toppers with 8.97%. ICICI Pru ELSS Tax Saver Fund, Mirae Asset ELSS Tax Saver Fund, and Mahindra Manulife ELSS Tax Saver Fund followed with returns between 8.65% and 6.6%.

Sectoral funds – top categories

Banking and financial services funds, auto and transportation, and energy funds led the sectoral pack.

Banking funds benefited from stable credit growth and margin resilience. Among banking and financial services funds, Quant topped with 20%, followed by DSP at 19.2%.

Auto funds benefited from the GST cut and strong stock performance. HDFC Transportation and Logistics topped with 19%, followed by UTI at 17.5%.

ICICI Prudential Commodities Fund delivered 12.9%, while DSP Natural Resources and New Energy Fund delivered 12.61%.

Global and international funds – international diversification paid off

Global funds proved to be efficient diversifiers in 2025 when Indian markets were weak. US, China, Europe, and emerging market funds led the return chart.

DSP World Gold Mining Overseas Equity Omni FoF, a major beneficiary of the gold rally, was not only the top international fund but also the overall top mutual fund scheme, delivering a staggering 161%.

ICICI Pru Strategic Metal and Energy Equity FoF delivered 65.13%, HSBC Brazil Fund 50.91%, and Edelweiss Europe Dynamic Equity Offshore 48.00%.

Gold and silver funds – precious metals outshone equities

Gold continued its momentum into 2025, but silver delivered exceptionally strong returns. SBI Silver ETF FoF delivered 130.65%, followed by Kotak Silver ETF FoF and HDFC Silver ETF FoF.

Among gold FoFs, Quantum topped with 71.85%, followed by UTI and ICICI Pru.

Hybrid funds – top categories

In a year when equities struggled, hybrid funds benefited from asset allocation.

Multi asset funds: Funds with exposure to precious metals and global equities delivered the best results. Invesco India Multi Asset Allocation topped with 21.16%, followed by DSP Multi Asset, Mahindra Manulife Multi Asset, Kotak Multi Asset Allocation, and Sundaram Multi Asset Allocation, with returns between 20.8% and 18.2%.

Balanced advantage funds: ICICI Pru Balanced Advantage Fund topped with 11.45%. Aditya Birla SL BAF, SBI BAF, DSP Dynamic Asset Allocation, and UTI BAF followed with returns between 9.5% and 8.1%.

Other hybrid categories, such as aggressive hybrid, arbitrage, balanced hybrid, conservative hybrid, equity savings, and income plus arbitrage, delivered category average returns of 5.57%, 5.99%, 5.1%, 5.42%, 6.27%, and 7.11% respectively.

Debt categories – benefited from rate cuts

Rate cuts improved bond valuations and were reflected in returns.

Corporate bond funds delivered a category average return of 7.4%. Franklin Corporate Debt Fund topped with 8.73%. Among gilt funds, ICICI Pru Constant Maturity Gilt Fund delivered 7.25%.

DSP Credit Risk Fund topped the credit risk category with 20.77%.

Category average returns for medium duration, short duration, low duration, ultra short duration, liquid, money market, overnight, and floater funds were 7.55%, 7.06%, 7.02%, 6.51%, 6%, 7.01%, 5.56%, and 7.39% respectively.

The diverse returns across categories in 2025 once again reinforced the importance of asset allocation across asset classes, both domestically and globally, in building a healthy portfolio.

V.Krishna Dassan, Director, Dhanavruksha Financial Services Pvt. Ltd.