List of equity mutual funds that beat their market benchmarks regularly

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

This statistic is available for 125 funds, and of these, 114 have maintained a beta of less than one in the past year, indicating lower NAV fluctuations compared to the market benchmarks (on an average). Close to 70% of such funds have generated positive alpha (higher than expected returns) in the past year. The data has been sourced from ACE MF database and is based on 1 September 2023 NAVs.

However, the above data also shows that all funds have not done well and, therefore, it is crucial for investors to identify good funds to achieve their investment goals. Though there are several ways of identifying the quality of a fund, excess return is among the more well-known methods. A fund that generates positive excess returns across multiple time frames generally has a robust asset mix that provides resistance during an unpredictable market environment.
Calculating excess return
Excess returns can be worked out using the trailing method (point-to-point) or rolling method.

The past year performance, as depicted above, was derived using the point-to-point method. However, this method is not free from biases as it fails to indicate whether the performance was consistent during the period under consideration. For example, if on the base date, the market (or NAV) closed lower, and on the end date, the market (or NAV) closed higher, the point-to-point method will show healthy performance.

A more efficient way of analysing excess returns is by using rolling returns. It provides greater clarity on the fund’s performance. This is because the rolling returns allow performance evaluation during different market phases, and enable better assessment of return consistency.