New to mutual funds? Start here
What a fund is, its three main kinds, two ways to put money in, and what looking back can and cannot say.
This explains how things work. It is not advice about what to buy, sell or hold.
What a fund is
A mutual fund pools money from many people and invests it in shares, bonds or both, as the objective in its offer document says. Each person holds Units, priced every business day at the fund's NAV (net asset value), and shares in the gains and losses in proportion to what they put in.
Its three main kinds
Equity funds invest mostly in company shares, so their value moves the most. Debt funds lend, by holding bonds and money-market paper, and move less. Hybrid funds hold both, in proportions SEBI sets for each category.
More: Equity, debt and hybrid →
SIP or once
Money can go in all at once, as a Lump sum, or a fixed amount at a time, as a SIP (systematic investment plan). Each purchase buys units at the NAV of its own day, so the same money put in the two ways ends up as a different number of units.
Looking back is not looking forward
Every figure on this site describes what already happened, at prices already published. No fund promises a return. A scheme can also be wound up, its holdings sold and the money paid out, so comparisons of the funds open today, this site's included, leave out the ones that closed or merged.
Try it with real funds
"What would a SIP have become?" takes an amount and a kind of fund and shows what it would be worth today in every fund of that kind, at their real past prices. No fund names are needed.
Sources
- SEBI www.sebi.gov.in/sebi_data/faqfiles/sep-2024/1727242783639.pdf checked 02 Oct 2026
- SEBI www.sebi.gov.in/sebi_data/attachdocs/oct-2017/1509103633344.pdf checked 02 Oct 2026