Investment style consistency and performance of Indian fixed income mutual funds

Abstract

In this study, we examine investment style, and style consistency and its relationship with risk-adjusted performance of the Indian fixed income mutual funds (MFs) using a sample of 242 funds across 16 categories over a period from April 2015 to March 2020. Our findings indicate that (a) fund managers practice securities selection, but their securities selection ability fails to improve risk-adjusted returns; (b) higher style consistency leads to better risk-adjusted performance; and (c) investment style and style consistency have considerable impact on fund performance. This is possibly the first comprehensive study that analyses investment style and its relationship with the performance of Indian fixed income MFs and contributes to the growing body of research on performance evaluation of fixed income funds.