Top Rated Equity Mutual Funds for 2017 from Crisil, VRO and Others
Mutual funds are good investment plans where one can invest as low as ₹ 500 per month and accumulate good wealth for medium to long term. While you might be aware on how to invest in mutual funds, you might be confused on how mutual funds are ranked and how you need to pick-up good funds from such high ranking funds. How Mutual Funds are ranked by Crisil? How Value Research Online (VRO) ranks Mutual Funds in India ? Are there any other ways of ranking mutual funds in India ? This article would provide some of the top rated mutual fund in India by Crisil, Value Research Online, Morning Start and other methods. It also provides some insights about how such funds are rated by these agencies or methods.
Also Read: Top 10 Sector Mutual Funds that are rocking in this bull run in 2017
What are Mutual Funds?
If you are aware about mutual funds, you can skip this section.
Mutual funds are professionally managed investment programmes in which the money of several investors are pooled together and invested in stocks, bonds and other types of securities. As an investor, you can buy mutual fund units which denote your share of holdings in a particular scheme. The units can be purchased or redeemed at the current NAV (net asset value) of the fund. These NAVs keep fluctuating according to the market.
All the mutual funds are registered with SEBI and they function within the strict provisions of it. There are different types of mutual funds available in the market like equity, debt or liquid funds.
What are Various ways on how mutual funds are ranked in India?
While investing in mutual funds, most of the investors just see the star rating given by various research agencies. These ratings are just one of the factors to consider. There are many other criterions that one should take in consideration before finalizing a mutual fund portfolio.
There are certain ways in which the mutual funds are ranked in India. Crisil Ranking, Value Research Online Ranking, Quartile Ranking are few methods through which the mutual funds are ranked. Risk-return analysis, portfolio diversification, consistency, expense ratio are the few factors that are considered for ranking mutual funds. Certain private companies like Crisil provide their ratings to the mutual funds. They act as a big guide for the common man.
1) How Mutual funds are ranked by Crisil?

There are five grades of ranks given-
Crisil rank #1- Very good performance
Crisil rank #2- good performance
Crisil rank #3- Average performance
Crisil rank #4- below average performance
Crisil rank #5- relatively weak performance
Top Rated Equity Mutual funds from Crisil
Here are the top rated mutual funds in India by Crisil (Rank-1 and Rank-2)
Birla Sun Life Top 100 Fund
Kotak select Focus Fund
SBI Blue chip fund
Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity fund
Birla SL India Gen Next
Motilal Oswal MOSt Focused Multicap 35 Fund
Principal Emerging Bluechip Fund
L&T Midcap Fund
Mirae Asset Emerging Bluechip Fund
HDFC Balanced Fund
ICICI Pru Balanced fund
2) How mutual funds are ranked by Value Research Online (VRO)?
Value research online (VRO) mutual fund rating is a concrete and convenient method that measures both returns and risk. It is purely quantitative and there is no subjective component to the fund rating. For equity and hybrid funds, the fund ratings for the two time periods, 3 and 5 years are combined to give a single assessment of risk rating of each fund in comparison to other funds of the same category. For debt funds, the fund ratings are based on 18 month weekly risk-adjusted performance in relation to other funds in the same category. Each category must have 10 funds to be rated. These are rated as 5 Star, 4 Star, 3 Star, 2 Star and 1 Star. 5 Star fund being very good performance and 1 star being pathetic performance.
Top Rated Equity Mutual funds from Value Research Online (VRO)
The following are the top rated equity funds from value research rating (5 Star rating).
Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity Fund
Franklin India Flexi Cap Fund
Mirae Asset India Opportunities Fund- Regular Plan
Motilal Oswal Most Focused25 Fund- Regular Plan
SBI Blue-chip Fund
Franklin India High Growth Fund
Mirae Asset Emerging Blue Chip fund
L&T India Prudence Fund
Also Read: Top 10 Aggressive Mutual Funds to invest in India
3) How do MorningStar rates mutual funds?

Top Rated Equity Mutual funds from MorningStar
Here are the top rated funds from morning star which are 5 star.
SBI Midcap and small cap fund
Mirae Emerging Blue chip fund
Reliance Smallcap fund
DSP BR Microcap fund
Principal Emerging Bluechip fund
L&T India value fund
4) How mutual funds are ranked by Quartile Ranking? It is not a rating agency, but it is a method by which funds are ranked

Top 25% of the funds are assigned as ‘top quartile’; the next 25% of the funds are ranked as ‘upper middle quartile, next 25% as ‘lower middle quartile’ and the lowest 25% are assigned as ‘bottom quartile’.
Top Rated Equity Mutual funds which has good Quartile Ranking
The following are the top 5 mutual funds with good quartile ranking. The ranking has been assigned on the basis of trailing returns of last one year to 10 years. Also, the quartile ranking of last two Quarters also has been kept in mind before naming these mutual funds.
Franklin India high Growth Funds
Kotak Select Focus Fund
SBI Blue Chip Fund
Birla SL Frontline Equity Fund
SBI Midcap and small cap fund
Mirae Emerging Blue Chip fund
Reliance Smallcap fund
Franklin India Smaller cos fund
L&T Prudence Fund
HDFC Balanced Fund
ICICI Balanced Fund
Also Read: 8 Ways to get higher returns from Mutual Funds which no financial advisor would tell you
5) How mutual funds are ranked by Volatility Ranking? Even this is not agency, but it is a method where funds are rated

Top Rated Equity Mutual funds which has good volatility Ranking
The following are the top 5 equity funds (Diversified) with a selected period of 3 years that has good volatility ranking:
Parag Parikh Long Term Equity Fund
SBI Bluechip fund
Escorts Leading Sectors fund
SBI Emerging Business Fund
DHFL Pramerica Equity Income Fund
Tata Regular Savings Equity fund
ICICI Pru balanced fund
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Suresh
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22 comments
Add a comment ↓Dear sir,
I have to invest 10 lakh . It will be better info could few monthly , quarterly income . But most likely to get maximum returne .
Kindly suggest me any stock or mutual fund . Want to invest for 4 to 5 years..
Please guide…..
Reds!!!!!
Hi Sureshji,
I have a medium/Long term investment intention, with moderately high Risk appetite. Curently i am investing 11000 monthly in below 3 MFs:
1. Aditya Birla SL Equity Fund(G) – Large Cap – 3500
2. Mirae Asset Emerging Bluechip -Reg(G) – Small/Mid cap – 4000
3. Motilal Oswal MOst Focussed Multicap 35 Fund-Reg(G) Diversified – 4000
Could you please suggest if this portfolio looks good to you ?
Also i want to invest in one more MF to make it a Portfolio of 4 MFs, Could you please suggest one or two options ? I am thinking of Kotak Select Focus Fund – Regular Plan (G) , your feedback please ?
Thanks a lot.