Mutual Fund Review: DSP BLACKROCK SMALL AND MID CAP FUND

Investment Strategy:

This fund focuses on the large cap, midcap and small cap stocks almost equally. This can be seen from the analysis of the holding patterns of this fund. In the past three years, large cap stocks on an average account for 30% of the portfolio, midcap stocks account for 33% of the portfolio, small cap stocks account for 29% of the portfolio and cash holdings account for 6.1% of the portfolio. The fund managers use derivatives in the portfolio quite often but the allocation to derivatives is less than 4% of the portfolio.

Pharmaceuticals, Fertilizers, Electric Equipment, Information Technology and Sugar are the important sectors for this portfolio. Unlike most top performing equity funds, this fund does not have banking as one of the key sectors. These five sectors on an average account for 21.5% of the portfolio. This fund unlike HDFC Midcap Opportunities fund is invested across more sectors.

Asset Size:

The fund's AUM is around Rs. 1163 crore as at 31 March 2011.

Performance:

This fund is one of the better performing domestic midcap and small cap funds in India. Even though the fund has a history of less than four years, this fund is also the best performing midcap and small cap fund on our platform over a 5 year period (31 December 2005 to 31 December 2010).

As of 31 December 2010, this fund has outperformed its benchmark, the CNX Midcap Index across all periods, right from six months till since inception. Over a 1 year period, this fund has given 29.62% while its benchmark has given 19.16% and since inception, this fund has given annualized returns of 16.98% while its benchmark has given 14.71%.