Eight Indian MFs in World's 25 best funds in a decade:

Eight domestic equity mutual fund schemes, including SBI Magnum Contra , HDFC Equity and Reliance Growth , are among the 25 best-performing open-ended equity funds in the world of the last decade, according to investment research firm Morningstar. These funds benefited from the 10-fold growth in total value of India's stock markets, led by a robust performance of one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

The eight funds returned 31% to 38% on a compounded basis in the past decade. The Sensex returned 17.8% on a compounded basis during the 10 years. Russia's RTS fetched 28.6% and Indonesia's JSX Composite gave 24.4% returns during the period.

Twelve equity mutual fund schemes from India figure among the 25 best-performing open-ended equity funds in the world over 15 years, Morningstar said in a note.

"Russian and Indonesian stock markets have performed better than ours in the last 10 and 15 years, but Indian equity funds crowd the list because the other countries did not have enough funds to capture those returns," said Dhruva Raj Chatterji, senior research analyst, Morningstar India.

India's total stock market capitalisation grew to over $1.6 trillion in December 2010 from $148 billion early last decade.

But no Indian fund made it to the list of best performing funds in the last five years or in 2010. China-focussed funds swamped the list for the top-25 performers during the last five years.

The Sensex fetched 16.9% returns in the five years to December 2010 and 17.4% in 2010. China's Shanghai composite rose 19.3% in the five years ending December 2010; in 2010 it had fallen 14.3% .

The worst performing market in 2010 within Asia was China, whose benchmark Shanghai Composite index closed in the red, falling by more than 14% after registering an 80% gain in 2009, the Morningstar note said.

"Concerns over monetary tightening, measures taken by the government to curb assets bubbles, including in the real estate market, and capital diversion to the huge number of IPOs weighed down on the performance of the benchmark index. This was despite the country's economy continuing to soar during the year," it said.
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Source: ET