Is mutual fund performance driven by skilful stock picking or solely by the market direction?

Fund houses and their managers claim special expertise in stock-picking skills and various strategies of portfolio construction that they apply to earn market-beating returns. Unfortunately, this is merely an ideal. Most funds cannot achieve market-beating results consistently. The majority of funds...

Sector funds are supposed to focus on a single sector. But to create performance, they diffuse their focus

The primary objective of most fund companies is amassing more and more assets through an ever-lengthening list of fund ideas. One such idea is sector fund. Sector funds invest entirely or mainly in a single sector. Sectors that are hot for a stretch of time immediately attract a fund....

Why do the portfolios of contra funds look exactly like large-cap diversified equity funds? Debashis Basu provides the answer

When you think of a contra fund, what would usually come to your mind? Funds that stay away from what the rest of the crowd herds into? Funds that would tend to rely less on stocks like Reliance Industries and Infosys? Or those that avoid chasing hot mid-cap stocks...