How to Read a Mutual Fund Portfolio

Every month each fund house lists everything each of its schemes owns. Here is what the list contains and how to read it without being misled.

By Rithick G · updated 26 October 2026

What the disclosure is

SEBI requires every asset management company in India to publish the complete portfolio of each scheme as at the end of every month, within ten days. It is a spreadsheet, one per scheme or one per fund house, listing each security the fund held on the last day of the month: its name, its ISIN, the industry, the quantity, the market value and the share of the fund’s net assets it represents.

It is the most direct view there is of what a fund actually does. A factsheet shows the ten largest holdings and a sector chart; the portfolio shows every line. This site collects these spreadsheets from each fund house and puts them side by side month after month: Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, the largest active equity fund here at ₹1.45 L Cr, is a good one to open alongside this guide.

The columns

Weight (or “% to net assets”) is the share of the fund the line represents. It is the figure to compare between funds of different sizes: 5% of a small fund and 5% of a large one are equally strong bets.
Market value is the line’s value at month-end prices, usually in lakh or crore. This site shows crore throughout.
Quantity is the number of shares (or units, or bonds) held. It is the only column that changes only when the fund trades.
Industry is the fund house’s own classification. Houses label the same company differently, so sector totals between houses are approximate.
ISIN identifies the security. A company’s shares, its bonds and its deposits each have their own ISIN, which is why one company can appear on several lines.

What the lines are

Most of an equity fund is shares, but not all of it. The other lines are what the fund keeps to meet redemptions, waits to invest, or uses to manage risk:

TREPS (tri-party repo) and reverse repo: overnight lending, the usual home for a fund’s cash.
Treasury bills, certificates of deposit and commercial paper: short-term money-market paper.
Net receivables / payables: money owed to or by the fund, such as trades not yet settled. It can be negative.
Futures and options: equity funds use index or stock futures to hedge, or to hold exposure while cash is being put to work. This site keeps derivative legs out of every total, because their notional value is not money invested.
REITs and InvITs, foreign shares, preference shares, warrants: allowed in small amounts depending on the scheme.

The cash guide covers the non-share lines in more detail.

Weights do not add up to exactly 100

Rounding, net receivables and derivative margins mean the weights in a disclosure usually add up to a little more or less than 100%. The sum of market values is also not quite the fund’s official assets under management, which include items the portfolio does not itemise. On this site that sum is called the portfolio value; where a month’s weights are far from 100%, figures that depend on them are left blank rather than guessed.

Reading a change from one month to the next

A holding’s value can rise because the fund bought more or because the share price went up. Weight has the same problem: a stock that rallies grows as a share of the fund without a single trade. To see what the manager actually did, look at:

Quantity: more shares means buying, fewer means selling. A bonus issue or a split changes the count without a trade, which is why a big jump is worth checking.
Entries and exits: a company that appears for the first time, or disappears, is the clearest signal a disclosure gives. Market moves counts them across every fund each month.

On this site a company is followed by its issuer, not its ISIN, so a change of ISIN after a split or a merger does not show up as a sale and a purchase.

What a portfolio cannot tell you

Trades within the month. It is a snapshot of the last day: a stock bought on the 5th and sold on the 25th never appears.
Prices paid. Values are at month-end prices, not cost.
The current portfolio. By the time a disclosure is out it is ten days old, and the fund has kept trading.
Whether the fund is good. A portfolio describes positions, not returns, costs or risk. Compare it with the scheme documents and the fund’s own factsheet.

What the disclosure is

The columns

Weight (or “% to net assets”) is the share of the fund the line represents. It is the figure to compare between funds of different sizes: 5% of a small fund and 5% of a large one are equally strong bets.

Market value is the line’s value at month-end prices, usually in lakh or crore. This site shows crore throughout.

Quantity is the number of shares (or units, or bonds) held. It is the only column that changes only when the fund trades.

Industry is the fund house’s own classification. Houses label the same company differently, so sector totals between houses are approximate.

ISIN identifies the security. A company’s shares, its bonds and its deposits each have their own ISIN, which is why one company can appear on several lines.

What the lines are

Most of an equity fund is shares, but not all of it. The other lines are what the fund keeps to meet redemptions, waits to invest, or uses to manage risk:

TREPS (tri-party repo) and reverse repo: overnight lending, the usual home for a fund’s cash.

Treasury bills, certificates of deposit and commercial paper: short-term money-market paper.

Net receivables / payables: money owed to or by the fund, such as trades not yet settled. It can be negative.

Futures and options: equity funds use index or stock futures to hedge, or to hold exposure while cash is being put to work. This site keeps derivative legs out of every total, because their notional value is not money invested.

REITs and InvITs, foreign shares, preference shares, warrants: allowed in small amounts depending on the scheme.

The cash guide covers the non-share lines in more detail.

Weights do not add up to exactly 100

Reading a change from one month to the next

Quantity: more shares means buying, fewer means selling. A bonus issue or a split changes the count without a trade, which is why a big jump is worth checking.

Entries and exits: a company that appears for the first time, or disappears, is the clearest signal a disclosure gives. Market moves counts them across every fund each month.

On this site a company is followed by its issuer, not its ISIN, so a change of ISIN after a split or a merger does not show up as a sale and a purchase.

What a portfolio cannot tell you

Trades within the month. It is a snapshot of the last day: a stock bought on the 5th and sold on the 25th never appears.

Prices paid. Values are at month-end prices, not cost.

The current portfolio. By the time a disclosure is out it is ten days old, and the fund has kept trading.

Whether the fund is good. A portfolio describes positions, not returns, costs or risk. Compare it with the scheme documents and the fund’s own factsheet.