New Delhi: Mutual fund investors will like to forget the month of May as a dark nightmare that robbed them off huge money, as none of the equity schemes managed to register positive return.
The sharp meltdown witnessed in the stocks during the month was seen casting its shadow on the mutual funds as well, which are traditionally considered as a lower-risk alternative for the investors seeking exposure to the markets.
The average one-month return across all the equity fund categories turned negative during the month, while some schemes even surpassed a sharp plunge of more than 13 per cent in the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share benchmark Sensex.
Schemes focused on the auto sector came out as the biggest cropper among all the fund categories with an average one-month return of 13.15 per cent in the red.
Ironically, the BSE Auto index registered a gain of 4.60 per cent in May after sailing through the month's volatile tides.
Among the sector funds, the best performance was put forth by banking schemes with an average negative return of 4.36 per cent in the month, better than the fall of 9.07 per cent in the BSE Bankex in the same period.
The mutual fund schemes were seen reeling under the effect of the market meltdown even as the top performing fund in the open ended segment, Principal Global Opportunities registered a negative return of 2.31 per cent.
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Sundaram Select Midcap and Quantum Long Term Equity followed Principal Global Opportunities with negative returns of 3.74 and 3.77 per cent respectively.
Incidentally, the equity funds were registering huge returns in a bull market just before the downslide began on the bourses earlier in May.
Among the sector-focused funds, the pharmaceutical funds notched a negative average return of 12.43 per cent, compared to a drop of 13.01 per cent in the BSE Healthcare Index.
Reliance Pharma was the worst performer in this category with a negative return of 15.54 per cent followed by JM Healthcare with a 13.10 negative return.
The technology funds posted an average negative return of 9.17 per cent, which was broadly in line with a plunge of 9.72 per cent in the BSE IT Index during the month.
Within technology funds, the worst performer was DSPML Technology.com, which posted a negative return of 10.49 per cent followed by negative returns of more than 9 per cent from UTI Software and Birla Sun Life New Millennium.
In the banking equity segment, UTI Banking Sector and Reliance Banking posted a negative return of 4.77 and 3.96 per cent respectively.
The index funds recorded a 11.38 per cent negative average return, better than the Sensex, which went down by 13.65 per cent.
Principal Index fund, UTI Nifty Index, Nifty Junior and Prudential ICICI Index all registered negative returns of more than 12 per cent.
The worst performing scheme across all the equity funds was DWS Alpha Equity with a return of 18.08 per cent.
The diversified equity segment registered a negative average return of 12.39 per cent for the month.
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