26 of 30 SIF strategies gain in August; Quant’s qSIF Ex-Top 100 up 24.25% in six months. What investors…

Reports coming in for today mention that Specialised Investment Funds (SIFs) had a broadly positive August, with 26 of the 30 strategies tracked ending the month with upside, according to the SIFprime report. The stronger performance came alongside a wide variation across strategies. While 360 ONE’s DynaSIF Ex-Top 100 led the month with a 6.40 percent gain, Quant Mutual Fund’s qSIF Ex-Top 100 stood out on the six-month horizon, delivering a 24.25 percent return, the highest among the strategies with a six-month track record.

The 26 gainers came from across most SIF categories. The SIFprime report tracks 30 strategies across five categories. 10 Equity Long Short, 11 Hybrid Long Short, 5 Equity Ex-Top 100, 3 Active Asset Allocator and 1 Sector Rotation strategy.

In August, all five Equity Ex-Top 100 strategies, all 11 Hybrid Long Short strategies, all three Active Asset Allocator strategies and the lone Sector Rotation strategy posted positive returns. Equity Long Short was the only category with mixed performance, with six of its 10 strategies ending August elevated, per the report.

"Asset expansion reveals that market participants are willing to try SIFs; repeat allocations and investor outcomes will show whether they earn a lasting place in portfolios," stated Kiran Dutta, Founder of sifprime.com.

Among the 10 funds listed in the table below, six-month returns ranged from a gain of 24.25 percent to a slide of 3.79 percent. The performance additionally varied across equity long-short, hybrid long-short and equity Ex-Top 100 long-short strategies.

Quant leads the six-month return chart

Quant Mutual Fund's qSIF Ex-Top 100 equity long-short strategy topped the table with a 24.25 percent six-month return. The strategy invests beyond the top 100 stocks and follows a long-short approach, giving it the highest return among the SIFs in the comparison.

Quant Mutual Fund additionally occupied the next two positions. Its quantitative equity long-short strategy delivered 14.33 percent, while its quantitative hybrid long-short strategy returned 11.97 percent over the same period.

The other two funds in the top five were ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund's iSIF hybrid long-short strategy, which returned 8.12 percent, and 360 ONE Asset's DynaSIF equity long-short strategy, which advanced 7.30 percent.

This means all five funds in the top five generated positive returns during the six-month period.

The softer end tells a different story

At the other end of the table, ITI Mutual Fund's Diviniti equity long-short strategy was the only fund to post a negative return. It declined 3.79 percent over six months.

The remaining four funds in the bottom five still delivered positive returns, although their upside were more modest. Tata Mutual Fund's Titanium hybrid long-short strategy returned 2 percent, followed by Bandhan Mutual Fund's Arudha hybrid long-short strategy at 3.01 percent.

SBI Mutual Fund's Magnum hybrid long-short strategy delivered 4.01 percent, while ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund's iSIF Ex-Top 100 equity long-short strategy advanced 5.98 percent.

The table highlights that SIF performance can differ substantially even within the same broad category. The equity long-short, hybrid long-short and Ex-Top 100 equity long-short strategies have produced different outcomes over the six-month period.

For market participants, the numbers additionally underline the importance of looking at the specific strategy rather than treating all SIFs as a single category. The gap between the top-performing strategy and the weakest performer was 28.04 percentage points during the period covered by the table.