Multi-asset funds: 10.58% in a year, gold did the work

The year in one number

In the year to Friday 24 July 2026, the median multi-asset allocation fund returned 10.58%. The Nifty 50 price index fell 5.17% over the same twelve months.

SEBI's rule for the category is short: hold at least three asset classes, with at least 10% in each. Equity and debt are two of them. The third is usually gold or silver, and this year that third leg is the story.

The figures come from daily NAVs dated 24 July 2026, Direct plan, Growth option. The category has 35 funds; 29 have a one-year figure, one of them, Franklin's, a week short of a full year. Gold and silver are international prices converted to rupees per gram.

Two halves of one year

The year splits cleanly at 29 January 2026, the day gold closed at ₹15,738 a gram, its highest in our records, which go back to 2021.

In the first half, Indian equity and government bonds went nowhere: the Nifty 500 slipped 0.71% and the composite G-sec index, which includes interest, gained 0.34%. The median multi-asset fund still gained 13.56%. With equity and bonds flat, most of that has to have come from the third asset class, and gold and silver rose more than 68% and 200% respectively.

In the second half gold gave back about a fifth of its value and silver nearly half, starting with a single day, 30 January, when gold fell 11.6% and silver 31.5%. The median fund lost 2.91%.

So the funds kept most of the gain. A fund needs only a modest slice in metals to turn a 68% rise into several points of return, and the same slice turns a 20% fall into a smaller loss.

Who rode it hardest

The funds that gained most in the first half tended to lose more in the second. Across the 28 funds with both figures, the correlation between the two halves is −0.45.

Kotak's fund made the biggest gain of the first half, 26.41%, and one of the larger losses of the second. Quant's is the exception that leads the year: a solid first half and a positive second, when most funds fell.

At the bottom, Samco's fund had a below-median first half and the worst second half in the category, and finished the year at 1.92%.

Edelweiss Multi Asset Allocation behaves like none of the others: +0.72% in the first half, +5.79% in the second, and three-year volatility of 1.98%, against a category median of 10.37%. A multi-asset label does not guarantee a multi-asset ride.

The longer record

Most of these funds are young. Only 12 have three years of history and 8 have five. For the ones that do, gold's long climb is part of the record: the rupee gold price is up 145% over three years.

What this does not tell you

A metals boom flatters the category, and a bust hurts it. The year's return rests on six months in which gold rose 68%. That is not a repeatable assumption.

Past returns don't predict. The funds that gained most when metals rose also tended to lose more when they fell.

We are inferring, not reading portfolios. The link to gold here comes from how the NAVs moved against prices, not from the funds' disclosed holdings.

Tax depends on the mix. A multi-asset fund can be taxed as equity, as debt or under a separate rule depending on how much equity it holds.

Where to go from here

The multi-asset allocation fund page lists every scheme. The guides on hedging with debt and gold and asset allocation and rebalancing explain why a third asset helps.

For the metals themselves, see gold and silver prices in June. For the other hybrid categories, see aggressive hybrid funds in June.