What is STCG?

Guides that use STCG

19 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 where asset allocation meets the 65% tax line. How a BAF really works, what internal rebalancing is worth, and why net equity is what 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 tax treatment that surprises.
• Gold funds and gold ETFs: paper gold versus the jewellery boxWhat gold is for in a portfolio, which instrument suits you — and the asymmetry where the 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 not handing the gain back 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, not a sale, and why 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 survives 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.
• Tax-loss harvesting: India has no wash-sale rule, and the mirror move nobody makesSell the loser and rebuy it the same day — India has no wash-sale rule. Then run it in reverse, because the ₹1,25,000 exemption does not carry forward.
• 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.
• Arbitrage funds: equity taxation on a trade with no market direction in itBoth legs hedged, so the risk is short-term-debt-like — but the equity-oriented label taxes gains at 20% and 12.5% where a liquid fund pays slab.
• 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. What 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.
• Old vs new tax regime: the choice that decides everything elseThe new regime is the default and usually the winner — but not always. Where the break-even sits, and why the regime decides if ELSS, HRA and 80D matter.
• ESOPs, RSUs and ESPPs: taxed twice, at two different pricesSlab tax on the discount when shares become yours, capital gains from that day's FMV when you sell. Why tax can fall due on paper value, and the basis error.

More on tax

Indian capital-gains treatment as it applies to mutual fund redemptions. Rates are FY 2026-27 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.