This category veteran has the track record of beating the benchmark in every one of the last 15 years, except 2008. It has retained a three to four star rating throughout its 12 year life.

Aditya Birla Sun Life Balanced Fund maintains a 70-30 allocation in favour of equities, with a 5 per cent leeway to move either way based on market conditions. Rebalancing is done on a monthly basis.

Within the equity portfolio, the positioning is conservative, with a two third allocation to large-cap stocks. The debt portion uses both duration and accrual strategies to deliver alpha.

Aditya Birla Sun Life Balanced Fund follows 'growth at a reasonable price' strategy and looks for secular growth stories for its equity portfolio. In the last one year, the fund has consciously shifted its equity weights in favour of large-caps, with a 69 per cent allocation to this segment as of January 2018. The debt portion uses a mix of sovereign and corporate bonds, but mainly with ratings of AA or above in the latter. The debt portion uses duration calls to add to returns, with the average portfolio maturity at 6.92 years by January end 2018.
The fund's underperformance of category and peers in the last one year has seen the margin of outperformance narrow over three and five years, too. Save for 2008, when it lagged behind the index, the fund has been quite good at handling both bull and bear phases. The fund's exceptional returns in 2009, 2014 and 2017 show that it has been particularly adept at playing the big bull years.

Aditya Birla Sun Life Balanced Fund is A reliable fund that has proved itself across three market cycles.