Mutual fund watchlist and alerts: what gets flagged

What problem does a watchlist solve?

Most people who track funds track a handful: the ones they own, and two or three they are considering. Searching for each by name every time is slow. And the changes that matter most, a new manager or a higher fee, are announced in filings nobody reads.

The watchlist keeps the handful in one table. Fund alerts, an opt-in email, tell you when one of them changes something that affects what you pay or who runs your money.

Step 1: star the funds

A star button sits next to fund names across the site:

• on each fund's own page
• on rows of the classic screener and the Terminal at /pro
• in the Terminal's side panel and the classic screener's compare drawer

Pressing it adds the fund; pressing again removes it. A count in the navigation bar updates at once. Without an account, the list is kept in this browser only, so clearing site data empties it.

Step 2: read the watchlist page

Open Watchlist. Each starred fund is a row with Fund, NAV, 1Y, 3Y, 5Y and Sharpe, plus a Remove button. Click any header to sort. Each name carries a plan tag beside it and its fund house and category underneath.

Here is a hypothetical watchlist of three real funds, as of 15 October 2026:

Three and five-year figures are CAGR; the one-year figure is a plain change. The three funds are in different categories, so the table lists them; it does not rank them.

With two or more funds, a Compare watchlist button opens the first four on the compare page.

Step 3: switch on alerts

Alerts need a free account. Go to Settings, open Preferences, and turn on the Fund alerts by email switch. It is off by default and saves the moment you flip it.

From then on, the hourly refresh checks for changes on every fund in your watchlist or imported portfolio. It sends one digest at most once a day, and only when something changed. Nothing changed means no email.

What triggers an alert?

The settings description mentions the first two. The digest carries all five, because the same filing check records them.

Two filters keep noise out. A TER wobble under 0.05 points is ignored. Manager names are compared on first and last name only, so "Mr. Rahul Baijal" and "Rahul Baijal" do not count as a change. If a filing cannot be parsed on both sides, it does not raise an alert either.

A worked example

Take the hypothetical watchlist above. The worker recorded three events on these funds in October 2026:

• 5 October: SBI Nifty Next 50 Index Fund, "Expense ratio up: 0.37% → 0.43%"
• 14 October: HSBC Flexi Cap Fund, "Fund manager change — now managed by Mayank Chaturvedi, Dipan S. Parikh; Sonal Gupta stepped away"
• 14 October: ICICI Prudential Balanced Advantage Fund, "Minimum SIP ₹250 → ₹100"

Suppose alerts were switched on and the first digest went out on 15 October. A first digest reaches back at most seven days. So it would carry the two 14 October events under the subject "2 updates on 2 funds you hold or watch", each with a "View fund" link. It would leave out the 5 October repricing, which is older than a week. After that, each digest covers what changed since the previous one.

Cost changes are marked by direction: a fee rise is flagged as bad news and a cut as good news, the opposite of how a rising number is shown elsewhere on the site.

Seeing changes without email

The same records appear on the site for anyone. A fund's page shows a Recent changes list, up to five entries, when it has had a recorded change in the last 30 days. The Insights page has a What changed recently section with the latest changes across all funds. In the 30 days to 15 October 2026 the worker recorded 368 expense-ratio changes and 411 manager changes, counted per plan, so the feed moves quickly.

What the watchlist and alerts do not do

• No NAV or price alerts. There is no "tell me when NAV crosses ₹X".
• No advice about the change. A new manager or a higher fee is a reason to look, not a verdict. Fund manager changes covers what to check, and checking a fund manager's record shows how.
• No backfill beyond a week. A change older than seven days at your first digest stays on the fund page but is not emailed.

Fees compound, which is why a 0.06-point repricing is worth an email; what a fund really costs explains why, and equity fund expense ratios by fund house shows where they sit today.