Flows dominate price accretion in Equity Fund AUM shift in May 2026

PRICE MOVES IN AUM SHIFT – THE MACRO PICTURE

In the month of May 2026, flows played a more important part in AUM shifts than price moves. That is more because price moves were modest, even though flow volumes were lower than previous months. At a macro level, the AUM of open-ended funds tapered by -0.40% to ₹81.39 trillion. In rupee terms, the total AUM of open-ended funds fell ₹-0.33 trillion; which included ₹0.30 trillion by way of price accretion, and ₹-0.63 trillion by way of net outflows from mutual funds in May 2026.

Data Source: AMFI (absolute numbers are ₹ in crore)

WHAT TRIGGERED MUTUAL FUND AUM SHIFT IN APR-26

• In the case of debt funds, AUM fall of ₹-0.89 trillion was triggered by ₹-0.97 trillion of net outflows from debt funds; offset by ₹0.08 trillion of price accretion.

• Equity funds had low price dominance at 41.8%, largely because even in the midst of tepid flows, the price action on equity funds was very limited.

• In the case of passive funds, price dominance was very high at 94.8%, but that was more due to flows drying up and a sharp rally in gold ETF prices.

• In the case of hybrid funds, price dominance was negative due to the positive flows into hybrid funds exceeding the Total AUM accretion. Price action was negative.

• At a macro level, the overall price accretion was dominated by equity funds, debt funds, and passive funds, while hybrid funds saw the price impact depleting.

EQUITY AUM SHIFT: FLOWS DOMINATE PRICE ACTION IN AUM SHIFT

For May 2026, Active Equity Funds saw positive flows of ₹22,908 crore, a full -40.4% lower than in April. Despite tepid flows, they dominated price moves in May 2026.

• Active Equity funds saw net AUM accretion of ₹39,366 crore. This was triggered by price accretion of ₹16,459 crore, assisted by net inflows into equity funds of ₹22,908 crore. The limited price accretion was due to rangebound moves in the market.

• Within equity funds, 2 out of 11 categories saw price dominance of over 100%, but ironically, in both cases flows and price moves were negative. The lowest price dominance among equity funds was in the large & mid-cap funds due to the mix.

• Here are equity fund categories offering best positive price performance in May 2026? The list was dominated by mid-cap funds, small cap funds, and sectoral funds. In the case of mid-cap and small-cap funds, even the flows were fairly robust.

• Interestingly, large cap funds and flexi-cap funds showed price depletion in May 2026. Large cap show can be attributed to Kurtosis effect, but flexi-cap performance was due to an overdose of large caps. That is where multi-caps manage to do better.

• If Flows can be seen as a barometer of investor appetite, the broad trend appears to be gravitating towards a mix of alpha hunting and allocation mix diversification.

In March and April, the price moves dominated AUM shift; in the negative and positive direction respectively. May 2026 was different, in the sense that the main trigger for the AUM shift came from flows and to a lesser extent from the price moves.