{"id":15496,"date":"2023-10-30T09:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T09:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/?p=15496"},"modified":"2025-09-18T10:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:20:10","slug":"active-vs-passive-what-you-need-to-know-about-passive-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/active-vs-passive-what-you-need-to-know-about-passive-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Active Vs Passive.\u00a0What You Need To Know About Passive Funds\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

For quite some time, there is a debate going on between active mutual fund schemes and passive ones. There is a shift happening in favour of passive funds. The argu\u00adment is that actively man\u00adaged funds charge a rela\u00adrively higher expellee ratio to the fund. If a fund is not performing better than the benchmark index, then the management cost is not justified. The investor would rather buy the refe\u00adrence index – not literally, but through a passive fund. This article is not about that debate as to which one is better. This is about sen\u00adsitisation on certain con\u00adcepts relevant to invest\u00adment in passive funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Return expectation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be noted, a passively managed fund would nev\u00ader perform better than the reference index, as it will simply track it. Rather, re\u00adturns from passive funds would be marginally lower than the reference bench\u00admark index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is due to three rea\u00adsons: First, there would be expenses charged to the fund: though much lower than active ones, it would make your returns that much lower than the in\u00addex. Secondly, there would be a tracking error, impact\u00ading your returns; Thirdly, if it is an usual open-ended fund where purchase-redemption is available with the mutual fund, and not an exchange traded fund (ETF), there would be a small cash com\u00adponent in the fund to meet redemptions. When the market is booming, this component would yield re\u00adlatively less than the refe\u00adrence index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking error<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ina passive fund, the man\u00addate of the fund is to follow the index i.e. construct a portfolio that replicates the reference benchmark index. As an example, if it is Nifty50 or Sensex, the passive fund will buy the same crocks as in the in\u00addex, in the same propor\u00adtion. However, small devia\u00adtions do happen. There is a metric called tracking er\u00adror, which looks at the ex\u00adtent to which returns have deviated from the bench\u00admark index. Obviously, the lower the tracking error, the better. To get the basics of what is tracking error, (1) it measures to what extent the returns of your fund has deviated from the un\u00adderlying index and (2) sta\u00adtistically, tracking error is defined as the annualised standard deviation of the difference in returns bet\u00adween the index fund and its corresponding index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it is standard de\u00adviation, the output is a pos\u00aditive number. Lower the number, better for you as an investor as it indicates your fund is tracking the index that much closely. An index fund manager needs to calculate his\/her tracking error on a daily basis, especially if it is an open-ended fund with dai\u00adly purchase \/ redemptions and need to re-adjust the portfolio. If you want to know, ov\u00ader a period of time, to what extent returns from your fund is lower than the in\u00addex, you simply have to compare the returns. As an example, if the index has delivered 10% over your in\u00advestment period and the fund has yielded 9.9%, then 0.1% is the tracking difference. To be noted, tracking difference is a sim\u00adple measure, just the diffe\u00adrence in returns, which you can calculate. Tracking error is a statistical mea\u00adsure calculated and dis\u00adseminated by the mutual fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fund format<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are exchange traded dunds (ETFs) that are listed at the exchange i.e. NSE\/ BSE. Post the new fund off\u00ader (NFO) period, you can purchase an ETF only at the exchange, and not from the mutual fund. When you want to sell it off, you can sell only at the exchange. You require a demat account and a trad\u00ading account with a stock broker, for purchase\/sale. These days, it can be done seamlessly, online. Only that, when you want to sell, there should be buyers at the exchange, otherwise you will have to suffer on the price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you have to be mindful of in an ETF is, the price at which you buy or sell would be different from the NAV of the fund. For the quoted or traded price at the exchange, while the NAV is the refe\u00adrence point, there may be significant differences as people are free to buy-sell at any price. Then there are funds, not ETFs, which follow the relevant index and you can purchase\/redeem with the mutual fund. You do not require any trading ac\u00adcount with a stock broker, and demat account is not compulsory. In this for\u00admat, liquidity is better for you, as you can redeem with the mutual fund any\u00adtime you want, at the NAV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fund selection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, we select funds with performance as one of the criteria. In passive funds, performance as such is not a criterion. A passive fund is meant to just follow the index and the fund manager does not take any independent deci\u00adsion in managing the port\u00adfolio. Rather, to evaluate passive funds, you lonk at tracking error or tracking difference. Tracking is the gauge of efficiency for pas\u00adsive funds – how closely it is tracking the index, what it is supposed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For ETFs, you may check liquidity at the ex\u00adchange, that will give you a clue that when you want to sell, what the situation might be. For the ‘normal’ funds, ones you buy\/sell with the RIF, you may refer to fund corpus size. That gives you a clue, how many investors have reposed their faith in that fund, and if there is a sudden re\u00addemption pressure, how comfortable they may be to create that much liquidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Index selection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the crux of it. Selec\u00adtion between one passive fund and another can only make a marginal difference to your returns. The index you select will make a big\u00adger difference. There is no one-line answer as to which index would give higher returns or which in\u00addex is better for you. This is an area where you would do better to seek profes\u00adsional advice, from an advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refer: https:\/\/www.thehindubusinessline.com\/portfolio\/personal-finance\/what-you-need-to-know-about-passive-funds\/article67473356.ece<\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For quite some time, there is a debate going on between active mutual fund schemes and passive ones. There is a shift happening in favour of passive funds. The argu\u00adment is that actively man\u00adaged funds charge a rela\u00adrively higher expellee ratio to the fund. If a fund is not performing better than the benchmark index, then the management cost is not justified. The investor would… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":21560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[154,159],"class_list":["post-15496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contributed-articles","tag-investment-banking","tag-mutual-funds","is-cat-link-solid-light is-cat-link-rounded"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15496"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21743,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15496\/revisions\/21743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trainingcentral.co.in\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}