Mutual Fund investment: How was the month of May for equity Flexi Cap funds? Check winners and laggards

Equity Flexi Cap Funds delivered a highly mixed performance in May 2026, with a handful of schemes posting strong gains while several prominent funds ended the month in negative territory. The divergence highlights the varied portfolio strategies adopted by fund managers amid a volatile market environment.

According to FinAlpha's Flexi Cap Funds Snapshot for the period between April 30 and May 30, 2026 (NAV as of May 29), Quant Flexi Cap Fund emerged as the best-performing flexi cap scheme, generating a monthly return of 5.76%, substantially outperforming the broader market benchmark.

The Nifty 500 TRI, which serves as a broad indicator of Indian equity market performance, ended the month almost unchanged at -0.01%, underscoring the ability of select active fund managers to generate alpha despite subdued market conditions.

Quant Flexi Cap leads

Quant Flexi Cap Fund stood well ahead of peers, delivering a return of 5.76% during May. The fund also maintained impressive longer-term performance metrics, including:

11.77% return over three months
8.03% return over six months
12.19% return over one year
20.71% annualized return over three years
18.89% since-inception CAGR

The performance reinforces Quant's reputation for aggressive portfolio positioning and tactical allocation across market capitalisations.

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Top performing funds

Several other flexi-cap funds also generated healthy gains during the month.

Rank    Fund    Monthly Return
1    Quant Flexi Cap Fund    5.76%
2    360 One Flexicap Fund    2.77%
3    LIC MF Flexi Cap Fund    2.76%
4    Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund    2.42%
5    Navi Flexi Cap Fund    2.05%

TrustMF Flexi Cap Fund (2.00%), Baroda BNP Paribas Flexi Cap Fund (1.99%) and Helios Flexi Cap Fund (1.66%) also featured among the month's notable performers.

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If Rs 1 lakh was invested...

A ₹1 lakh investment made at the beginning of May 2026 would have yielded vastly different outcomes across flexi cap funds, reflecting the category's wide performance dispersion. The best-performing scheme, Quant Flexi Cap Fund, would have turned ₹1 lakh into ₹1.06 lakh in just one month, generating a gain of ₹5,760. In contrast, an investment in the worst-performing fund, Sundaram Flexicap Fund, would have declined to ₹97,990, resulting in a loss of ₹2,010.

Among the top performers, 360 One Flexicap Fund, LIC MF Flexi Cap Fund and Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund also delivered healthy gains, while Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund and Mahindra Manulife Flexi Cap Fund featured among the laggards. The nearly ₹7,770 gap between the best and worst-performing funds highlights the importance of fund selection even within the same mutual fund category.

Other popular funds

While the top performers generated strong returns, many widely tracked flexi cap funds struggled to keep pace.

Among the weakest performers were:

Fund    Monthly Return
Sundaram Flexicap Fund    -2.01%
Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund    -1.35%
Mahindra Manulife Flexi Cap Fund    -1.11%
Capitalmind Flexi Cap Fund    -0.76%
Franklin India Flexi Cap Fund    -0.75%

Other large and established schemes, such as HDFC Flexi Cap Fund, ICICI Prudential Flexicap Fund, Tata Flexi Cap Fund, Bandhan Flexi Cap Fund and Edelweiss Flexi Cap Fund, also posted negative monthly returns.

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Long-term winners

Monthly returns do not always reflect long-term performance leadership.

Among the strongest funds based on three-year annualized returns were:

Fund    3-Year Return
Bank of India Flexi Cap Fund    22.80%
Quant Flexi Cap Fund    20.71%
ITI Flexi Cap Fund    20.33%
Motilal Oswal Flexi Cap Fund    19.38%
Invesco India Flexi Cap Fund    19.22%

Bank of India Flexi Cap Fund also stood out with the highest since-inception CAGR of 26.16% among the funds tracked.

Broad category picture

Of the 43 flexi cap funds tracked in the snapshot, a majority managed to outperform the benchmark, but returns remained highly polarized across the category.

The difference between the best and worst performer was nearly 7.8 percentage points, illustrating the importance of fund selection in the current market environment.

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What investors should watch

The May performance data highlights that flexi-cap funds continue to benefit from their freedom to invest across large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap stocks. However, performance dispersion remains significant.

For long-term investors, experts generally recommend evaluating funds based on consistency of returns, portfolio quality, risk-adjusted performance and fund management strategy rather than relying solely on one month's gains or losses.

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