Two honest numbers
Ask what the median small-cap fund returned over the last five years and the answer is 14.93% a year. Ask what it returned over a typical five-year stretch since 2013 and the answer is 19.46%.
Both are correct. The first is one window, the five years ending 7 October 2026. The second is the average of every five-year window that ends at a month-end, starting in early 2018: about 105 of them, each moved forward by one month.
On 1 October we showed this for large-cap funds. This post extends it to every equity category with enough funds. Each category covers Direct plan, Growth option funds with NAV records starting by early 2013, so every fund has the same set of windows. All returns are computed from daily NAVs.
The table
| Category | Funds | Median trailing 5Y | Median average rolling 5Y | Gap (points) | Range of fund averages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small cap | 8 | 14.93% | 19.46% | 4.53 | 15.56% – 24.40% |
| Mid cap | 15 | 13.58% | 18.08% | 4.50 | 15.81% – 20.63% |
| Multi cap | 5 | 11.29% | 16.58% | 5.29 | 15.53% – 21.11% |
| Large & mid cap | 16 | 11.32% | 16.51% | 5.19 | 13.64% – 20.49% |
| Value | 11 | 11.98% | 15.82% | 3.84 | 12.72% – 17.72% |
| Focused | 11 | 11.07% | 15.65% | 4.58 | 13.58% – 17.50% |
| Flexi cap | 15 | 9.63% | 15.51% | 5.88 | 10.25% – 21.36% |
| ELSS | 21 | 10.08% | 15.03% | 4.95 | 12.66% – 23.19% |
| Large cap | 21 | 8.31% | 13.93% | 5.62 | 10.72% – 15.97% |
| Aggressive hybrid | 13 | 8.79% | 13.57% | 4.78 | 10.22% – 18.06% |
| Balanced advantage | 6 | 8.99% | 12.25% | 3.26 | 8.31% – 15.48% |
Multi cap has only five funds with this long a record, and balanced advantage six, so their medians are shaky. Small cap has eight. Contra and dividend yield funds, with three each, are left out.
Large cap here is 21 funds at 13.93%, not the 22 and 13.80% in the 1 October post: the fund set and the date both differ slightly.
What the gap says
Every category sits between 3.3 and 5.9 points a year below its rolling average. The latest five years began on 7 October 2021, when the Nifty 50's P/E was 27.24 against a median of 22.6 since 2013, and ended after a year in which the index fell. That is a poorer stretch than a typical one for equity funds in general, not for any particular style. Three categories show the biggest gaps: flexi cap (5.88), large cap (5.62) and multi cap (5.29). Value (3.84) and balanced advantage (3.26) show the smallest.
The ranking by style is largely the same on both measures. Small cap and mid cap lead on both, and large cap and the hybrids trail on both. What changes is the distance. On trailing returns, small cap leads large cap by 6.6 points a year; on rolling averages by 5.5.
The ranges are wide. Within flexi cap the average rolling five-year return runs from 10.25% to 21.36% across the 15 funds, and within ELSS from 12.66% to 23.19%. The category you pick matters less than it appears next to the spread inside it. For the large-cap funds, rolling returns ranked the same funds quite differently from trailing returns.
The ten-year view
The first ten-year window for these funds ends in early 2023, so the ten-year averages rest on under four years of end dates and are even less independent of each other.
| Category | Median trailing 10Y | Median average rolling 10Y |
|---|---|---|
| Small cap | 16.29% | 19.60% |
| Mid cap | 15.76% | 18.45% |
| Large & mid cap | 14.15% | 16.69% |
| Flexi cap | 12.95% | 15.34% |
| ELSS | 12.61% | 15.17% |
| Large cap | 11.68% | 14.05% |
The gap narrows to between 2.4 and 3.3 points here, since a ten-year window ending today starts in October 2016 and spreads the weak recent years over a longer record.
What this does not tell you
The windows overlap heavily. About 105 five-year windows that start a month apart share most of their months, so they are not 105 separate results.
The period is not typical of every future decade. Windows ending in 2018 to 2026 include the rise from the 2020 low. Requiring a record since 2013 also leaves out funds that merged or closed, which can flatter the medians.
Past windows do not predict the next one. This is a description of what happened, not a statement about what any category will return. It is also not advice to buy or sell any fund.
Where to go from here
Rolling vs trailing returns explains why both measures exist, and the category returns scorecard shows the trailing view alone for the same date range.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the trailing 5-year return so much lower than the rolling average?
The trailing figure is one window, the five years ending on 7 October 2026, which began on 7 October 2021, when the Nifty 50's P/E was 27.24, and ended after a year in which the index fell. The rolling average takes every 5-year window that ends at a month-end, about 105 of them, many starting at lows and ending at highs.
Which equity fund category had the highest average rolling 5-year return?
Small cap funds, at a median 19.46% a year across the eight funds with a Direct Growth record since 2013, ahead of mid cap funds at 18.08%. Large cap funds had 13.93% and aggressive hybrid funds 13.57%.
Should I expect the rolling average from a fund going forward?
No. A rolling average describes the past windows it was built from. It tells you what a typical holding period delivered between 2013 and 2026, a stretch with strong markets, and says nothing certain about the next five years.
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.
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