Gold Funds Beat Equities: 44% SIP Returns Over 3 Years
By Market Desk
Discover how gold funds, like SBI Gold Fund (44.11%), significantly outperformed equity funds over three years with SIP investments. See your money grow!
If you’ve been investing through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) over the last three years, you might be surprised to learn that gold funds have significantly outperformed equity funds.
The SBI Gold Fund delivered an impressive 44.11% return, while the Axis Gold Fund was close behind at 43.84%, making them clear leaders in the three-year SIP performance data.
Your ₹10,000 Monthly SIP: Gold vs. Equities
Imagine putting ₹10,000 into a SIP every month for three years, totaling ₹3.6 lakh in contributions. The difference in accumulated value between gold and equity funds is quite stark.
In the SBI Gold Fund, your investment would have grown to approximately ₹6.59 lakh.
The Axis Gold Fund would have seen your SIP value reach around ₹6.57 lakh.
Conversely, top-performing equity funds in the same period typically accumulated around ₹4.9 lakh, a substantial difference compared to gold funds.
Gold Funds Lead Equity Categories by a Wide Margin
The SBI Gold Fund’s 44.11% return was an impressive 22.75 percentage points higher than the third-ranked SBI Healthcare Opportunities Fund.
Similarly, the Axis Gold Fund’s 43.84% return more than doubled the performance of the leading equity funds, which generally clustered around 20-21%.
Among the equity funds, performance varied slightly across categories. The difference between SBI Healthcare Opportunities Fund at 21.36% and WhiteOak Capital Mid Cap Fund at 19.57% was just 1.79 percentage points.
Equity Funds: Pharma, Small-Cap, and Mid-Cap Show Strength
Beyond the gold funds, the remaining top spots in the three-year SIP ranking were dominated by equity schemes across diverse categories.
SBI Healthcare Opportunities Fund and UTI Healthcare Fund delivered 21.36% and 20.79% respectively, highlighting strong performance in the pharma sector.
Small-cap funds also performed well, with Bank of India Small Cap Fund returning 21.36% and ITI Small Cap Fund at 21.17%.
Mid-cap funds also made their mark; HSBC Midcap Fund led its category at 21.26%, followed by Invesco India Mid Cap Fund at 19.94% and WhiteOak Capital Mid Cap Fund at 19.57%.
A Look at One-Year SIP Performance: A Different Story
While gold dominated three-year returns, the one-year SIP data presents a different picture, showing how quickly market leadership can shift.
The Bank of India Small Cap Fund topped the one-year chart with a remarkable 50.13% return, despite its three-year return being 21.36%.
ITI Small Cap Fund also posted strong one-year returns at 42.06%. Gold funds, while still strong, saw Axis Gold Fund at 38.45% and SBI Gold Fund at 37.83% for the one-year period.
This shift underscores a crucial lesson for your investment journey: the performance leader can change significantly depending on the investment horizon you consider.