This is one of the two tax saving funds (out of 37) fall in the large-cap space. Its highly investors better than its peers during market down turns. Since its launch, of the total of eight quarters in which its category has been in the red, the fund outperformed its peers in all these. On the flip side, one has to deal with middling performance during market run-ups.
The fund has no restrictions in term so market-cap, sector or thematic bias. The focus is on bottom-up stock picking. However, the portfolio isbiasedtowardslarge-capsandclearlytowardsfinancialservices.Thedecision to buy or sell a stock is made on the basis of the fund manager's understanding of the growth outlook, fundamentals and valuations.
Fundmanager, Sandeep Kothari goes by the balance sheet more than what the market is chasing. So, not surprisingly 17 of his holdings have been in the portfolio almost since inception. Despite a large-cap bias, the portfolio is highly diversified. A part from Reliance Industries, allocation to a single stock has rarely exceeded six per cent of the portfolio. However, the fund takes numeroussmallbets.InDecember2010,as manyas28stocksaccountedforlessthan one per cent of the funds portfolio. The large-cap bias does not make it a very exciting offering. It does give stability but the concentrated sector bets, could hinder performance if they do not deliver.
