Balanced funds are hybrid mutual funds that invest in equity and debt instruments, and usually balanced equity funds invest no more than 35% of their money in debt instruments.
I created a list of the best balanced funds in India in March 2011, and I thought of updating that list as it is close to 2 years since it was created last.
I’m not a big fan of these type of lists because no matter how much you say that past performance is not an indicator of future performance, at the end of the day, if you’re making these type of lists then that shows that you do give a lot of weight to how the fund has behaved in a certain manner.
But I do feel that among all the factors I have seen to evaluate mutual funds, past performance is something that everyone relies and does help you to a certain extent.
For example, in my last list almost 2 years ago there were 10 funds, and based on the best 5 year performance, 8 of those funds feature in the list today as well.
Was there any way to know which 2 would drop out? No, absolutely not. So there is some utility but only so much.
With that said, here is the list of the best balanced funds ordered according to their five year performance.
| Fund | 1 Year Return | 3 Year Return | 5 Year Return |
|---|---|---|---|
| HDFC Children Gift Investment | 12.07% | 15.34% | 11.87% |
| Reliance Regular Savings Balanced | 17.46% | 9.75% | 10.88% |
| HDFC Balanced | 9.76% | 11.72% | 10.85% |
| HDFC Prudence | 10.21% | 10.99% | 10.64% |
| Canara Robeco Balance | 14.11% | 10.31% | 8.83% |
| Birla Sun Life 95 | 12.88% | 9.91% | 8.44% |
| ICICI Prudential Equity Volatility Advantage | 20.67% | 12.91% | 8.22% |
| Tata Balanced | 16.14% | 10.30% | 7.96% |
| UTI CCP Advantage | 9.56% | 6.25% | 7.85% |
| DSPBR Balanced | 8.20% | 7.30% | 7.18% |
The two funds that were present in the earlier list but have dropped down now:
| FT India Balanced | 12.41% | 8.67% | 5.90% |
| Principal Conservative Growth | 17.74% | 5.73% | 3.99% |