Why check overlap at all?
Four funds feel like four bets. If two of them hold the same forty stocks in similar weights, they are closer to one bet with two expense ratios. Overlap is the number that tells you which it is. Are you diversifying or doubling down? covers when it matters and when it does not.
WealthTicker measures overlap in two places. The compare page takes up to four funds you name and needs no account. The Stock duplication card on the Portfolio page does the same for everything in your imported CAS, which needs a free account.
How the figure is calculated
Each fund's equity holdings, from its fund house's monthly disclosure, are first scaled to add up to 100%. Then, for every stock both funds hold, the smaller of the two weights is counted, and those minimums are added. If fund A holds 9% in a bank and fund B holds 6%, 6% of each book is common through that bank.
The rescaling matters. Disclosed equity weights add to 94–99%, not 100, and differently for each fund. Without it, every overlap would read low, and a hybrid would read lower than a pure equity fund for no real reason.
Step 1: put your funds on the compare page
Open compare and add up to four funds. This example uses four real Direct Growth funds that a hypothetical investor holds: UTI Nifty 50 Index Fund, ICICI Prudential Large Cap Fund, Kotak Flexi Cap Fund and HDFC Mid Cap Fund. All four disclosures are dated 30 September 2026.
Scroll to Portfolio overlap (same stocks held through more than one fund). With three or more funds it shows a matrix of every pair, shaded from 0% to 60% and above, plus a small two-circle diagram per pair. Selecting a cell or diagram changes the pair shown below. The section opens on the pair with the highest overlap.
Step 2: read every pair
| Pair | Overlap | Stocks in both | How the page reads it |
|---|---|---|---|
| UTI Nifty 50 Index × ICICI Pru Large Cap | 67.2% | 41 | 50% or more, no measured band: adds concentration |
| UTI Nifty 50 Index × Kotak Flexi Cap | 47.5% | 22 | no measured band, under 50% |
| ICICI Pru Large Cap × Kotak Flexi Cap | 43.8% | 27 | above the 36.5% median, inside the band |
| Kotak Flexi Cap × HDFC Mid Cap | 11.6% | 13 | above the 9.8% median, inside the band |
| ICICI Pru Large Cap × HDFC Mid Cap | 5.3% | 10 | below the 6.4% median |
| UTI Nifty 50 Index × HDFC Mid Cap | 1.5% | 1 | no measured band |
The sentence under the diagram is the useful part, because "high" is measured against funds of the same type. For the top pair it reads: "UTI Nifty 50 Index Fund and ICICI Prudential Large Cap Fund duplicate 67% of their equity book — holding both adds concentration, not diversification." For the large-cap and flexi-cap pair, it says the 43.8% is above the median but inside the normal band, nine pairs in ten sitting below 49.2%.
The bands come from measuring real pairs of each type. Two large-cap funds have a median overlap of 52.9%, because SEBI defines large cap as the top 100 stocks and every large-cap fund fishes in that pond. A large-cap and a mid-cap fund have a median of 6.4%. An index fund has no measured band, so the page falls back to a plain line at 50%.
Step 3: see which stocks drive it
Below the verdict, Shared holdings lists up to 15 common stocks with each fund's rescaled weight. For the index and large-cap pair the biggest shared positions are ICICI Bank (9.05% of the index book, 9.27% of the large-cap book), HDFC Bank (10.37% and 8.77%), Reliance Industries (7.59% and 5.67%), Bharti Airtel and Larsen & Toubro. The circles also count stocks held by one fund only: 9 for the index fund and 42 for the large-cap fund.
Step 4: check the whole portfolio
The compare page stops at four funds. For a full statement, import your CAS and open Allocation on the Portfolio page. The Stock duplication card averages every pair, weighting each by the money in both funds. Suppose the four funds above sit alongside a corporate bond fund, worth ₹21.60 lakh in all as of 15 October 2026. The card reads 26.4%, Moderate: under 15% reads Low, 40% or more High. The bond fund publishes no equity holdings, so a "Coverage: 4/5 funds" chip names it as left out rather than counted as zero.
Above 15%, the same figure appears in the Needs your attention strip: "Your funds overlap 26.4% on average". It also feeds the Diversification score, where it earns 11.8 of 25 points.
The arithmetic also answers a what-if. Recomputed without the large-cap fund, the same weighted average is 18.0%; without the index fund instead, 18.6%. Whether either change suits a given investor is a separate question that overlap alone cannot settle.
What overlap does not tell you
- Low is not better. Two funds with 2% overlap can both be poor choices. Overlap measures sameness, not quality.
- It is a month old. Holdings come from monthly disclosures.
- Debt is ignored. Only equity holdings are compared, and funds with none are left out and named.
How much the six largest flexi-cap funds overlap applies the same method across one category, and how many funds you need is the next question once you have the numbers. The methodology page describes the bands. None of this is a recommendation to buy, hold or sell any fund.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check overlap between two mutual funds?
Put both on the compare page. Its portfolio overlap section renormalises each fund's equity holdings to 100% and adds the smaller of the two weights for every stock both hold. UTI Nifty 50 Index Fund and ICICI Prudential Large Cap Fund came to 67.2% on 30 September 2026 disclosures, with 41 stocks in common.
What is a high overlap between two mutual funds?
It depends on the pair. WealthTicker's measured median for two large-cap funds is 52.9%, while for a large-cap and a mid-cap fund it is 6.4%. A pair reads as unusually high only above the 90th percentile for its type, such as 49.2% for large cap with flexi cap.
What does the stock duplication figure on my portfolio mean?
It is the average overlap between each pair of your equity funds, weighted by how much money sits in each pair. A hypothetical four-equity-fund portfolio scored 26.4%, which the card labels Moderate: below 15% reads Low and 40% or more reads High.
This is commentary on published data, not investment advice. WealthTicker is not a SEBI-registered adviser or distributor. Figures are WealthTicker’s own calculations from public data — AMFI’s fund NAVs and disclosures, NSE’s index and FII/DII files, and the fund houses’ monthly portfolios (how we calculate). They are as of the dates stated and can be revised by their source.
Keep reading
Portfolio look-through: the stocks you own through funds
Five funds can mean 178 stocks and a fifth of your money in banks. How the Allocation tab unwraps every fund's holdings, with a hypothetical portfolio.
Which mutual funds hold a stock: using the stock pages
Look up a stock and see every mutual fund that owns it, at what weight and for how many rupees. A worked Larsen & Toubro example, September 2026 disclosures.
How many stocks do equity funds hold? From 11 to 255
Across 332 equity funds the median portfolio has 63.5 stocks. A focused fund holds 29, a small-cap fund 83; the range runs from 11 to 255. By category.