The easiest leak to fix

A quick follow-up to what I was trying to drive home in the Fund Advisor Live session on December 6: over long periods, small cost differences do not stay small. A viewer, Venkia, made a useful suggestion. Instead of using a hypothetical 12 per cent versus 11 per cent example, why not show a real direct versus regular comparison for the same fund, starting from January 2013, when direct plans began? So, we ran exactly that exercise across a large set of funds using a Rs 25,000 SIP for 10 years (as of November 26, 2025). Here is the punchline, in plain English. For the median fund, the direct plan ends up roughly 6.5 per cent ahead after 1

This article was originally published on December 22, 2025.