New Delhi, Sept. 8 -- A mutual fund can generate strong returns over a period without its investors necessarily earning the same returns. In some cases, the difference can be surprisingly large, depending on when investors put their money into the fund.

Small-cap funds provide a striking example. Between March 2013 and June 2020, the category generated a 14.8% CAGR, according to the September 2026 edition of DSP Mutual Fund's Netra report. However, investors' actual return during the same period was -1.6%.

That represents a difference of more than 16 percentage points. Small-cap funds are not the only category where the return generated by the fund and the return earned by investors can vary significantly.

The timing of investments is ...