Price accretion dominates Equity Fund AUM shift in April 2026

PRICE MOVES IN AUM SHIFT – THE MACRO PICTURE

In a sense, April was the exact reverse of March. If net AUM fell by -10% in March, it recovered by 11.2% in April 2026. This shift was due to a combination of net flows and price changes. In the case of debt funds; while flows dominated, it was price dominating in case of equity funds, hybrid funds, and passive funds. At a macro level, the AUM of open-ended funds rebounded +11.2% to ₹81.72 trillion. In rupee terms, the total AUM of open-ended funds recovered ₹8.23 trillion; which included ₹4.96 trillion by way of price accretion, and ₹3.27 trillion by way of net inflows into mutual funds in April 2026.

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

WHAT TRIGGERED MUTUAL FUND AUM SHIFT IN APR-26

• In the case of debt funds, price changes contributed 5.72% to the AUM shift, while the balance 94.28% came from a rebound in net inflows into short-end debt funds.

• Equity funds had the highest price dominance at 89.8%, largely because flows tapered marginally, and the rebound in the market was sharp on peace hopes.

• In the case of passive funds, price dominance was fairly high at 81.4%, with gold ETFs playing a much smaller role in price accretion, compared to January 2026.

• In the case of hybrid funds, price dominance was at 72.5%. However, that is misleading because, if arbitrage funds were excluded, then price dominance would have been as high as 85.6%. Clearly, equity is having a big influence on hybrids too.

EQUITY AUM SHIFT: INDEX RALLY DOMINATES AUM SHIFT IN APR-26

Equity Funds saw positive flows of ₹38,440 crore, but price accretion led AUM shift.

• Active Equity funds saw net AUM accretion of ₹3.76 trillion. This was triggered by price accretion of ₹3.38 trillion, assisted by net inflows into equity funds of ₹0.38 trillion. The price accretion was largely on account of the market rebound.

• Within equity funds, 2 out of 11 categories saw price dominance of over 100%, and a total of 6 categories saw price dominance of over 90%. The lowest price dominance in this case was 81.2% in case of flexi-cap funds.

• One has to take the top ranked equity funds with a pinch of salt. In these cases, the high level of price dominance is due to tepid flows. Multi-cap funds and flexi cap funds have low price dominance but that is more because the net inflows were strong compared to their AUM. The categories at the centre are the key drivers.

• There are some broad signals coming with reference to category preferences among equity funds. The preference for sectoral / thematic funds is clearly waning. Most market-cap-based allocation funds have been getting strong flows, while the alpha funds have experienced the maximum price impact in the month of April 2026.

March and April were months when the markets saw sharp price moves. A clearer picture of flows versus price dominance would be visible when markets are rangebound. Despite net inflows of ₹3.27 trillion; more than 60% of the AUM shift was price driven.