Low-drawdown equity screen: why 29 of 31 funds are young

What the screen asks for

The low-drawdown equity screen sits in the screener's Risk-adjusted returns group. Its rule:

• the fund is an equity fund,
• its maximum drawdown is shallower than 20%, and
• its three-year CAGR is above 12%.

The page adds its own housekeeping: Direct plans only, Growth option, no segregated portfolios or schemes that have stopped publishing a NAV. It ranks the funds that pass by three-year CAGR. There is no size floor.

The pairing makes sense. A return figure says what you ended with; a drawdown says what the worst stretch felt like on the way, which is often the moment people sell. A fund that delivered 12% or more without a 20% fall would have been easier to hold.

One detail decides almost everything about the result: the drawdown is measured over the fund's whole history, from its first NAV to 9 October 2026, not over a fixed window.

How many pass

Of 418 Direct equity funds with a three-year record, 210 beat 12% a year. Only 31 of those also never fell 20%. The ten with the highest three-year CAGR, as of NAVs to 9 October 2026:

AUM is each scheme's average for July to September 2026, all plans together.

What fills the list

Healthcare funds. Five of the 31, including both funds older than 2020. Neither fell 20% in March 2020, when the Nifty 50 index fund fell 38.42%: Mirae Asset Healthcare's worst fall came then, at 19.98%, just inside the line.

Multi cap and flexi cap funds: seven multi cap and five flexi cap. The other 14 are three ELSS, two value, two mid cap, one focused, one large cap and five more thematic funds (three business cycle, one innovation, one financial services).

One fund house more than any other. WhiteOak Capital has five of the 31: its mid cap, multi cap, flexi cap, ELSS and large cap funds, all launched in 2022 or 2023.

Small funds. With no AUM floor, LIC MF Healthcare at ₹99 crore sits beside ICICI Prudential Flexi Cap, the largest in the list at ₹24,586 crore (14.96% over three years, worst fall 19.71%).

Why the list is so young

29 of the 31 funds published their first NAV after the March 2020 crash. The oldest of those, DSP Value Fund, began in December 2020; 25 of the 31 have no five-year record at all.

That is the full-history drawdown at work. The UTI Nifty 50 Index Fund fell 38.42% at its worst, in March 2020; its worst fall in the last three years was 15.51%. Among the 279 Direct equity funds with NAVs from before 2020, the median worst-ever fall is 36.94%, and only 3 of the 279 have never fallen 20%. An older fund cannot pass this screen unless it dodged 2020, as the pharma funds did.

The younger funds' worst moments came later and were shallower. For 26 of the 31, the deepest fall bottomed between February and April 2025.

If every fund were judged on its worst fall in the last three years instead, 97 would pass rather than 31. Our post on the worst fall in three years by category uses that common window.

What it leaves out

• Nearly every fund that lived through 2020, however well it has done since.
• Small-cap funds. None pass; their falls have been deeper.
• Funds under three years old, which have no three-year CAGR to test.
• Hybrid funds, which are not in the equity category even when they hold mostly shares.

How to read it

A shallow drawdown in a short life is not proof of a shallow fund. A fund launched in 2023 has not met a fall like 2020's. Its -17% may be a good portfolio or a calm three years. The screen cannot tell which, and neither can we.

Compare like with like. Before reading much into the worst-fall column, check each fund's first NAV date on its page. Axis Multicap vs WhiteOak Capital Multi Cap puts two of the multi caps side by side; their records start almost two years apart.

Drawdown is one measure among several. Volatility, Sortino and capture ratios describe the ride differently; risk-adjusted returns explains how they fit together.

The list moves. The screen reruns on every day's NAVs. One sharp fall can push a fund past -20% for good, since a full-history drawdown never shrinks, and a fund turning three can join.

These are past figures computed from each fund's NAV history. A screen narrows a list; it does not rank funds by merit, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any of them.