Best or top performing mutual fund schemes across all debt mutual fund categories keep changing over time, since current performance of a scheme relative to other schemes, may not always be sustained in the future. One cannot compare the performance of debt funds across different categories. For example, one cannot compare the performance of a long term gilt fund with a short term fund). Once an investor has identified a particular category of debt funds for investment, based on his or her investment objectives, he or she needs to look at a number of factors when identifying the best debt funds in that category. The investor needs to look at returns across various timescales by going to our MF research section

(https://www.advisorkhoj.com/mutual-funds-research/top-performing-mutual-funds?category=Income Funds&period=1y&type=Open&mode=Growth). You should first select the relevant category and then look at the top performing funds across several time periods, by selecting different periods like 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years etc from the drop down menu. You should also check for the consistency in the fund performance by looking at the rolling returns of the funds versus the benchmark. Rolling returns are the total returns of the scheme taken for a specified period on every day/week/month and taken till the last day of the duration. In this chart we are showing returns on every day during the specified period and comparing it with the benchmark. Rolling returns is the best measure of a fund's performance. Trailing returns have a recency bias and point to point returns are specific to the period in consideration. Rolling returns, on the other hand, measures the fund's absolute and relative performance across all timescales, without bias. You can see rolling returns in our MF research section by going to https://www.advisorkhoj.com/mutual-funds-research/rolling-returns. The rolling return time period should correspond with your typical investment holding period. In addition to returns, investors should also look at the track record of the fund manager and the mutual fund company.