What is STCG?

Guides that use STCG

15 guides put this term to work.

• Growth vs IDCW: which option should you pick?An IDCW comes out of your own NAV and is taxed at your slab rate. The arithmetic, the reinvestment trap, and the rare case where it still makes sense.
• Hybrid and balanced advantage funds: the ultimate stress-free ride?Hybrids live at the intersection of asset allocation and the 65% tax line. How a BAF really works, what internal rebalancing is worth, and why net equity is the only number that matters.
• International funds: diversifying beyond the economy you already earn inYour job, salary and property are already a bet on India. The case for global exposure, the RBI limits that close schemes, and the non-equity tax treatment that surprises people.
• Gold funds and gold ETFs: paper gold versus the jewellery boxWhat gold is actually for in a portfolio, which instrument suits you — and the asymmetry where the listed ETF turns long-term at 12 months and the fund-of-fund only at 24.
• The art of asset allocation: it decides more than fund selection ever willHow much sits in equity matters more than which equity fund. Setting the split, rebalancing on bands rather than hunches, and doing it without handing back the gain in tax.
• SWP: creating your own monthly pensionWhy a withdrawal plan beats an IDCW payout on tax and on control, how each instalment is taxed, and the sequence risk that decides whether the money lasts.
• Portfolio rebalancing: when and why you must sell winning assetsDrift is a risk decision you never made. Bands over hunches, the execution ladder that starts with new money rather than a sale, and why the discomfort is the mechanism.
• Handling underperformance: when to stay and when to exitSeparating what changed about the fund from what changed about the market: mandate drift, manager exits, and the review habit that stops you acting on a bad quarter.
• Fund manager changes: should you panic when the captain leaves?Were you buying a person or a process? What to check immediately, what to watch for six to twelve months, and the one situation where moving quickly is free.
• How to clean up a portfolio with too many schemesFour moves in strict order: see everything, label every holding, stop the inflows, then unwind slowly across financial years using the annual exemption.
• Mutual fund taxation decoded: short-term vs long-term capital gainsEquity, debt, hybrid and ELSS are taxed under different rules, and the rules changed twice in three years. What applies now, and to which of your units.
• How to invest a windfall: inheritance, bonus, property saleThe first ninety days decide the outcome. Park it, take tax advice before moving anything, clear expensive debt, and stagger only the equity portion.
• Tactical asset allocation: shifting weights on valuationValuation predicts a decade and almost nothing about next year. You have to be right twice, and every move in a taxable account gives back part of the edge.
• Moving your funds from one platform to anotherYour platform does not hold your units, so changing apps usually transfers nothing. The distinction that costs money is a Regular-to-Direct switch, which is a redemption.
• Automated rebalancing: robo-advisor or do it yourself?In India the deciding variable is tax: rebalancing inside a fund costs nothing, rebalancing across your own funds realises gains every time.

More on tax

Indian capital-gains treatment as it applies to mutual fund redemptions. Rates are FY 2025-26 and exclude surcharge, cess and STT.

LTCG

Gains on units held past the long-term threshold — 12.5% where it applies.

Equity-oriented fund

A fund holding at least 65% Indian equity — the test that decides its tax treatment.

FIFO

The order units are treated as sold in when computing capital gains.