What is the category median?
A return of 17% means little by itself. Is it good? It depends on what comparable funds delivered over the same period. The category median answers that: line up every fund in a SEBI category, such as Flexi Cap or Value, sort them by the metric, and take the one in the middle. Half the funds did better and half did worse.
The median is used instead of the average because averages are pulled around by a few extreme funds. One unusually strong or weak fund can move an average a long way, while the median barely moves, so it describes the typical fund in the category.
Fund value above the category median means the fund beat the typical peer on that metric. Below it means the fund trailed the typical peer. Direction matters: for returns higher is better, while for cost or volatility lower is better.
Real comparison across 6 funds
The chart sets each fund’s 3-year rolling CAGR against the median for its own category. Only funds in the same category are compared, so each bar pair uses a different baseline.
CHART
3Y rolling CAGR (%) vs category median - 6 real funds
Rolling CAGR is the median compound growth rate across every 3-year window in the fund's history. Category medians come from all funds in the same SEBI category.
Funds compared: DSP Value · ICICI Prudential Value · Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver · Parag Parikh Flexi Cap · SBI Focused · SBI Multicap
Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver sits 4.89 percentage points above its ELSS median of 17.61%, while SBI Multicap sits 0.88 points below its multi cap fund median of 18.26%. SBI Focused lands exactly on its category median, which is what the middle fund of 27 looks like.
The median and its neighbours
The median is the middle point of a spread. The 25th and 75th percentile values mark the edges of the middle half of funds. In ELSS, the middle half of funds sit between 15.35% and 20.62% on this measure. A fund can beat the median by a hair and still be in the crowded middle, so the width of that band shows how much a gap to the median really means. See Category Rank and Percentile for where a fund sits in the full ordering.
See Fair Peer Groups for why this only works within one SEBI category, with a real cross-category comparison.
How wide is the middle of a category?
The distance between the 25th and 75th percentile values shows how tightly or loosely funds in a category cluster. Across these categories the middle half of funds spans 5.27 percentage points in ELSS and 2.82 points in value fund. A narrow band means funds are close together and small gaps to the median are meaningful. A wide band means a fund can sit several points from the median and still be in the middle of the pack.
Median versus benchmark
The category median and the benchmark answer different questions. The benchmark is an index the fund is supposed to beat. The median is what other managers actually delivered. A fund can beat its benchmark and still trail the median if peers did even better, and the reverse can also happen, so a careful comparison uses both.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU Always compare against the median of the same category, the same time window and the same plan type. A mid cap fund set against a large cap median, or a 1-year figure against a 3-year median, tells you nothing. A fund beating its category median once is also weak evidence; check whether it does so across several windows, as in rolling returns.
METHODOLOGY 3-year rolling CAGR for direct-plan funds as of 2026-10-16. The category median, 25th and 75th percentile values are computed across every fund with a 3-year history in the same SEBI category. Data: Punji category rankings. Not investment advice.