New Delhi, July 10 -- Suppose you invested in a mutual fund that delivered 15% annualised returns over the past five years. But when you calculated your own returns, they were closer to 10%. It may seem like the fund underperformed, but experts say that is often not the case.

The difference usually lies in what the mutual fund earned versus what its investors actually earned. While a scheme's published return reflects the performance of the fund itself, an investor's return depends on when money was invested, withdrawn or redeemed. This difference is commonly referred to as the investor return gap.

A mutual fund's reported return assumes that money remained invested throughout the period. Investors, however, keep adding, withdrawing or ...