HDFC Top 200 is one of the oldest schemes that has a remarkable performance history. Fully invested portfolio at all times, proactive sector rotation in accordance with market development and a value oriented approach have been the main features of this fund, which has helped it to outperform consistently.

It is a well diversified portfolio. Stock selection is based on the bottom-up approach, which is why after the 2008 downfall the fund has done extremely well in the recent recovery. It is ideal for core equity funds exposure in the portfolio as there is no sector, market cap or investment style bias. The AMC has a strong fundamental research process and rule based fund management approach. This, therefore, reduces the dependability of the performance only on the fund manager.

Launched in 2008, ICICI Prudential Focused Blue chip Equity (earlier known as ICICI Focused Equity Fund) is a pure large cap portfolio from the beginning. In its short performance history, the fund has always been an outperformer in the large cap funds category. The portfolio of large caps stocks in sectors that are in momentum makes the fund worth being a core portfolio fund.

One of the oldest large cap bias funds from a good asset management company (AMC). Its large cap focus makes the fund best suited in a volatile or downward trending market. The fund is managed by veteran Anand Radhakrishnan and is from a fund house with a fund management track record across the world.

ICICI Prudential Dynamic fund, as the name suggests, is dynamic in the sense that through its use of an allocation model it will attempt to allocate a higher percentage of funds to equities when the markets are lower and cheaper. Conversely, it will allocate a lower percentage to equities when the markets are rising and expensive. A fund that actively tracks the market fundamentals to rebalance its investment allocation brings the much needed stability of returns to the overall portfolio.