It underperformed severely at first, but Tata Balanced has shown its mettle in the past five years… After five years of severe underperformance, the fund began to pull up its socks in 2002 and delivered a brilliant performance in 2003. Such a top quartile performance was repeated only in 2007 and 2009. By and large, this fund is not known for its outstanding returns, but over a long-period of time, its investors won't be unhappy. Over the past five years ended May 31, 2011 it has delivered an annualized return of 14 per cent (category average: 11%). In 2008, it was the high exposure to Metals and Capital Goods that hit the fund hard. Towards the end of that year, exposure to both the sectors was reduced significantly while that to FMCG was increased. Once the market began to rally in 2009, the fund manager immediately reduced allocation to FMCG from 16 per cent (March 2009) to 4 per cent (May 2009) and exposure to Technology began to increase. These moves helped the fund...