Mutual Fund AUM Shift Explained: Flows vs Market Impact
Understand mutual fund AUM shifts in Feb 2026—how inflows vs market movements impacted equity, hybrid & passive funds. Key insights for investors.
WHY LOOK AT MUTUAL FUND AUM SHIFT
When the mutual fund AUM data was announced last week, most of us could see that the assets under management (AUM) had gone up. However, what is important is the source of this AUM accretion. Typically, AUM accretion can either come from net inflows or from price appreciation. Both flows and price shifts can work both ways; positive and negative.
But why is this so important? For instance, if you look at the month of February 2026, the AUM accretion MOM was at ₹1,01,282 crore. However, ₹94,194 crore of this AUM accretion came from net inflows and only ₹7,088 crore came from price accretion. The reason was that large cap stocks and gold applied major price pressure on the MF AUM accretion. Let us first look at the AUM shift of active equity funds and then of hybrid and passive funds.
DECOMPOSING AUM SHIFT IN ACTIVE EQUITY FUNDS
If you look at February 2026 over January 2026, the AUM accretion of active equity funds was to the tune of ₹52,698 crore. The table below gives the break-up.
| Equity Oriented Schemes | Net Flow Feb 2026 | AUM Feb 2026 | AUM Accretion | Price Accretion | Price Dominance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ELSS | -650.02 | 2,45,351.54 | 1,063.90 | 1,713.92 | 161.10% |
| Dividend Yield Fund | 21.22 | 32,643.02 | 191.69 | 170.47 | 88.93% |
| Mid Cap Fund | 4,002.99 | 4,62,097.67 | 12,658.90 | 8,655.91 | 68.38% |
| Multi Cap Fund | 1,933.53 | 2,21,586.09 | 5,140.71 | 3,207.17 | 62.39% |
| Large & Mid Cap Fund | 3,137.73 | 3,31,893.10 | 7,271.78 | 4,134.05 | 56.85% |
| Small Cap Fund | 3,881.06 | 3,63,536.98 | 8,747.01 | 4,865.95 | 55.63% |
| Sectoral/Thematic Funds | 2,987.29 | 5,29,804.20 | 6,061.05 | 3,073.77 | 50.71% |
| Focused Fund | 900.72 | 1,72,879.66 | 1,344.50 | 443.78 | 33.01% |
| Value/Contra Fund | 727.07 | 2,15,264.76 | 1,049.98 | 322.91 | 30.75% |
| Large Cap Fund | 2,111.68 | 4,11,231.74 | 2,928.24 | 816.56 | 27.89% |
| Flexi Cap Fund | 6,924.65 | 5,53,187.14 | 6,240.53 | -684.13 | -10.96% |
| Active Equity Funds | 25,977.91 | 35,39,475.91 | 52,698.28 | 26,720.37 | 50.70% |
| Data Source: AMFI (Figures are ₹ Crore, unless stated otherwise) |
Here is a quick view. Out of the ₹52,698 crore of AUM accretion in active equity funds in February 2026, nearly 50% came from net inflows and 50% from price accretion. When you look at the price dominance, it is best to only focus only on fund categories with significant net flows, either on the upside or on the downside.
Price damage was most visible in the case of large cap funds and flexi-cap funds that had gone overweight on large-cap stocks. Amidst the global turmoil in West Asia, it was the large-cap index stocks that took the maximum hit. Smaller stocks were less impacted by the sell-off, which explains why the price factor has still been dominant in their case.
DECOMPOSING AUM SHIFT IN HYBRID FUNDS
If you look at February 2026 over January 2026, the AUM accretion of hybrid funds was to the tune of ₹12,822 crore. The table below gives the break-up.
| Hybrid Allocation Schemes | Net Flow Feb 2026 | AUM Feb 2026 | AUM Accretion | Price Accretion | Price Dominance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative Hybrid Fund | -67.87 | 29,737.16 | 209.95 | 277.82 | 132.33% |
| Arbitrage Fund | 591.85 | 2,73,568.73 | -3,085.34 | -3,677.19 | 119.18% |
| Equity Savings Fund | 42.36 | 50,498.05 | -242.42 | -284.78 | 117.47% |
| Retirement Fund | 18.37 | 32,229.11 | 185.00 | 166.63 | 90.07% |
| Dynamic Asset Allocation/BAF | 1,521.57 | 3,23,655.44 | 3,752.80 | 2,231.23 | 59.46% |
| Aggressive Hybrid Fund | 1,419.21 | 2,52,393.86 | 3,211.83 | 1,792.62 | 55.81% |
| Multi Asset Allocation Fund | 8,476.26 | 1,83,245.91 | 8,585.59 | 109.33 | 1.27% |
| Children’s Fund | 228.73 | 25,434.38 | 204.33 | -24.41 | -11.94% |
| Hybrid Allocation Funds | 12,230.48 | 11,70,762.64 | 12,821.74 | 591.26 | 4.61% |
| Data Source: AMFI (Figures are ₹ Crore, unless stated otherwise) |
Here is a quick view. Out of the ₹12,822 crore of AUM accretion in active equity funds in February 2026, nearly 95% came from net inflows and just 5% from price accretion. Price impact was the lowest in Aggressive Hybrid Funds and in Multi-Asset Allocation Funds. In both cases, the key factors were large cap stocks and gold/silver exposure respectively. Even arbitrage funds saw price depletion in the equity component.
DECOMPOSING AUM SHIFT IN PASSIVE FUNDS
If you look at February 2026 over January 2026, the AUM depletion of passive funds was to the tune of ₹(17,654) crore. The table below gives the break-up.
| Passive Funds | Net Flow Feb 2026 | AUM Feb 2026 | AUM Accretion | Price Accretion | Price Dominance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GOLD ETF | 5,254.95 | 1,83,325.43 | -951.53 | -6,206.48 | 652.27% |
| Other ETFs | 4,487.15 | 9,76,208.43 | -21,141.98 | -25,629.13 | 121.22% |
| Index Funds | 3,233.44 | 3,24,567.30 | 4,073.44 | 840.00 | 20.62% |
| FOFs investing overseas | 903.77 | 39,595.61 | 366.53 | -537.25 | -146.58% |
| Passive Funds | 13,879.31 | 15,23,696.77 | -17,653.54 | -31,532.86 | 178.62% |
| Data Source: AMFI (Figures are ₹ Crore, unless stated otherwise) |
Here is a quick view. Out of the ₹(17,654) crore of AUM depletion in passive funds in February 2026, the price depletion of index ETFs and gold ETFs more than offset the positive net inflows. Negative price impact was the highest in index ETFs and in gold ETFs. That is not surprising considering that gold corrected amidst the volatility, while large cap indices also corrected amid the FPI sell-off.
Clearly, the decomposition lets us into the real story of how AUMs moved in the month!
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