MyFinCards

Mutual Fund Returns Calculator

For a holding you already have. Enter what you put in and what it is worth today, and get both figures that matter: the absolute return over the whole period, and the CAGR — the only one comparable across holdings of different ages. Want to project forwards instead? Use the lumpsum or SIP calculator.

₹1,00,000
₹1,000₹1,00,00,000
₹2,50,000
₹0₹5,00,00,000
5 Yr
1 Yr40 Yr
Total gain₹1,50,000
Absolute return150%
CAGR (per year)20.11%

What the Holding is Made Of

Value After 5 Years

₹2,50,000

150% in total is 20.11% a year

Ahead of the long-run equity average. The absolute return counts the whole period at once, so it always looks larger the longer you have held — the only figure that compares one holding against another is the annual one. At the same 20.11% the holding would reach ₹15,62,500 in another ten years, which you can check on the lumpsum calculator.

This works backwards from a holding you already have: it takes the value and produces the rate. That is the opposite of a projection, which assumes a rate and produces a value — if that is what you want, use the lumpsum or SIP calculator instead. It assumes one investment made on one date. A holding built from many SIP instalments needs XIRR, because each instalment has been invested for a different length of time.

Worked Example: ₹1,00,000 Now Worth ₹2,50,000

You put in ₹1,00,000, it is worth ₹2,50,000 5 years later, so it has made ₹1,50,000. Dividing that by what you put in gives the absolute return; taking its 5th root gives the annual one.

Absolute return

150%

₹1,50,000 ÷ ₹1,00,000

CAGR

20.11%

(2,50,000 ÷ 1,00,000)^(1/5) − 1

Gain

₹1,50,000

before tax and exit load

A CAGR is a smoothed figure, not what any single year did

It is the one steady rate that would have reached the same place. The real path was almost certainly nothing like it, and two funds with the same CAGR can have had very different worst years. The figure here is also pre-tax: equity gains held over a year attract long-term capital gains tax, and that comes out of the gain shown above.

What this Calculator Does

It works backwards from a result you already have. Most calculators assume a rate and produce a value; this one takes the value and produces the rate. That is the figure you need to answer whether a holding has actually done well, which no projection can tell you.

How to Use It

1

Enter what you originally invested, as a single amount.

2

Enter what the holding is worth today — the current value on your statement.

3

Set how many years you have held it.

4

Compare the CAGR, not the absolute return, against another fund or a fixed deposit.

When CAGR is the Wrong Tool

CAGR assumes one investment on one date. If your holding was built from monthly SIP instalments, each one has been invested for a different length of time and the correct measure is XIRR — using CAGR on the total overstates the return. The figure here is also pre-tax and pre-exit-load, and says nothing about how rough the ride was.

Expert FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Two figures, and you need both. The absolute return is (current value − amount invested) ÷ amount invested, expressed as a percentage, and covers the whole holding period at once. The CAGR is (current value ÷ amount invested)^(1/years) − 1, which restates that as a rate per year.
Absolute return tells you how much, CAGR tells you how fast. A holding that doubled is 100% absolute whether it took three years or fifteen — but that is 25.99% a year in the first case and 4.73% a year in the second. Only the annual figure lets you compare one holding against another, or against a fixed deposit.
Because absolute return accumulates and CAGR does not. The longer you have held, the larger the absolute figure grows for the same annual performance, which is why fund marketing tends to quote absolute returns for older schemes and annualised returns for newer ones. If a return is quoted without a period attached, it is almost certainly absolute.
No. CAGR is the single steady rate that would have reached the same end point. The real path was almost certainly nothing like it — two funds with an identical CAGR can have had very different worst years. It is a summary, not a description.
Not accurately. This assumes one investment made on one date. A holding built from monthly SIP instalments has each instalment invested for a different length of time, so the correct measure is XIRR, which weights every cash flow by its own date. Using CAGR on a SIP total overstates the return, because it credits the whole corpus with the full holding period.
Context decides it. Long-run Indian broad-market equity index returns have sat near 12% a year, so an equity fund materially below that over a long period has not justified its risk. For a debt fund, 6-8% is the relevant comparison. Judge any figure against the category and the period, never in isolation.
No. The gain shown is pre-tax and pre-exit-load. Equity fund units held over a year attract long-term capital gains tax, units held under a year the higher short-term rate, and debt fund gains are taxed at your slab rate. Your realised return is lower than the figure here, by an amount that depends on when you sell.
Because it has no honest answer. A zero or negative amount invested makes every percentage a division by zero, and a holding period under a year has no annual rate to report. Other calculators return 0% in these cases, which reads as "no gain" rather than "no answer" — we leave it blank instead.
Yes, and it is negative. A holding down 20% over two years has a CAGR of −10.56% a year. That is the right way to read a loss, because it is comparable with any other period — a 20% fall over two years is worse than the same fall over eight.
Use the lumpsum calculator for a single amount, or the SIP calculator for monthly instalments. Those assume a rate and produce a value; this page does the reverse. The CAGR you get here is a reasonable rate to feed into them, provided you treat it as an assumption rather than a forecast.