Research powered by 20+ years of data

Alpha Lab

5 MIN READ

Why the SIP Return You See on a Fund's Page Isn't the One You'll Get

Every fund page shows a clean SIP return number. It's a description of a fund that already became a winner, measured over a window that ended before you clicked buy. Here's how often that winning streak actually continues.

Alpha Lab

6 MIN READ

Small Caps Are Expensive Again - Here's What the Data Actually Shows

September 2026 was a record month for mutual fund inflows, and small cap funds pulled in roughly ten times what large cap funds did. The valuation numbers explain why that's the riskier entry point of the three segments right now.

Alpha Lab

6 MIN READ

The AUM Curse: Why Yesterday's Star Fund Becomes Tomorrow's Index Clone

A small-cap fund grew 146x over 15 years, doubling its stock count until it owned nearly the entire investable universe. Its rolling 3-year alpha went from +9.5% to -1.1%. That's not a coincidence - it's structural.

Methodology

The corpus multiplier: why 30× beats a safe withdrawal rate

Most retirement calculators assume steady returns every year and quietly understate how much corpus you actually need. Here's why a 30-year retirement needs a 28-30x expense multiple, not the 19-20x a straight-line calculator will show you - and why 25x is the real danger line.

Alpha Lab

5 MIN READ

We measured alpha for 1,066 equity funds. Here's who earned it.

Only 1 in 3 active equity funds beat their benchmark over 3 years. But within that third, the gap between top and bottom is wider than most investors assume - and the winners cluster in unexpected categories.

Portfolio X-Ray

4 MIN READ

Mutual fund overlap: what it really means (and when to actually worry)

Most retail investors hold several equity funds thinking they've diversified. Often they've just paid multiple expense ratios for the same portfolio. Here's how much overlap is normal, how much crosses SEBI's same-AMC threshold, and what to actually check before you add another fund.

Methodology

6 MIN READ

Fund health score: why peer-relative beats absolute thresholds

Most fund scorecards fail the same way: they punish a small-cap fund for higher volatility and reward a large-cap fund for lower returns. The Punji health score solves this by comparing every fund only against its SEBI category peers - not against a universal yardstick that conflates apples with mangoes.

Alpha Lab

9 MIN READ

The Quality Trap: A 13-Year Alpha Audit of Indian Equities

Across multiple bull runs, bear markets, and a once-in-a-generation crash, the evidence from Indian equities is consistent: systematically screening for quality does not generate alpha. But the data reveals exactly when it does - and what that tells us about how quality should actually be used.