A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED EQUITY MUTUAL FUNDS IN INDIA

This study aims to evaluate and compare the performance of five prominent equity mutual funds—Mirae Asset Large Cap Fund, Axis Bluechip Fund, Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, Quant Active Fund, and SBI Small Cap Fund—over a five-year period from 2020–21 to 2024–25. The research focuses on analyzing the annual returns of these funds to assess their relative efficiency, stability, and growth potential. Descriptive statistical analysis was conducted to identify trends in performance, while inferential analysis using ANOVA (Single Factor) was applied to test whether significant differences exist among the mean returns of the selected funds. The results indicated that while the Quant Active Fund and Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund delivered comparatively higher average returns, and large-cap funds such as Mirae Asset and Axis Bluechip demonstrated moderate but consistent performance, the differences in mean returns were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). This finding suggests that, despite apparent variations in numerical performance, all selected equity mutual funds performed similarly in statistical terms. The study concludes that investors should base their fund selection not only on historical returns but also on risk-adjusted performance, consistency, and investment objectives. The comparative evaluation of the selected equity mutual funds shows that all funds generated positive returns during the study period, with Quant Active Fund and Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund achieving higher average performance.