Three funds, one portfolio: what overlap actually looks like
Four large cap funds can be, between them, one large cap fund. The filings show it plainly — if you put them side by side.
A very common portfolio: four equity funds, from four fund houses, bought at four different times on four different recommendations. It feels diversified. It often is not.
Why it happens
A large cap fund must, by definition, hold large caps — and SEBI defines those as the top 100 companies by market capitalisation. That is the entire universe. Every large cap fund in the country is choosing from the same hundred names.
They are also measured against the same indices, watched by the same analysts, and penalised for straying too far from the index. The result is predictable: two large cap funds frequently share 60% to 80% of their portfolios, and sometimes much more.
You did not buy two funds. You bought one fund and paid two expense ratios.
What overlap is, precisely
Overlap between two funds is the total weight of the companies they both hold, counting the smaller position each time.
If Fund A holds a bank at 8% and Fund B holds the same bank at 5%, they overlap by 5 percentage points on that one name. Add that up across every shared holding and you get one number: how much of these two funds is the same thing.
Above 70%, the second fund is mostly a copy. Below 30%, they are genuinely doing different work.
The number that matters more
Overlap between two funds is interesting. Your concentration in a single company is the number that can actually hurt you.
If one bank is 8% of one fund, 7% of the second and 9% of the third, and those three funds are most of your equity, you have roughly 8% of everything in one company — without ever deciding to.
The most common surprise when people look properly is not that funds overlap. It is finding a single name at 6% or 7% of their entire portfolio that they never chose and could not have named.
Where the data comes from
Every AMC files each fund's full portfolio with AMFI once a month. That filing is public. It is the same source behind every holdings figure on this site — currently 2,400 funds across 49 fund houses, roughly ₹100 lakh crore of disclosed assets, in 8,438 distinct securities.
Two honest limits worth knowing:
- It is monthly, not live. The filing is a photograph on one date. The manager may have traded the next morning.
- It is the most recent one loaded, which each page states. A portfolio that has moved a lot since will not show that here — or anywhere else, until the next filing.
Doing it for your own funds
Put your funds side by side and read three things: the overlap between each pair, the companies they all share, and your total weight in the largest few names.
The question is not whether the number is high. It is whether you knew it was.
Analysis, not advice. Holdings are as filed on the date each page states, and are neither a recommendation nor a view on any company.