JioBlackRock has launched its Nifty 50 Index Fund Direct Growth on August 18, 2025, managed by fund managers Tanvi Kacheria, Anand Shah, and Haresh Mehta. As of September 2026, the fund has ₹268 crore worth of assets under management (AUM) and maintains the same AUM levels between August and July 2026. The fund has delivered a CAGR return of -5.16% since inception and -7.25% over the last 1 year. The fund requires a minimum investment of ₹500 for lump sum and SIP, with no lock-in period and expense ratio of 0.2%.
JioBlackRock Mutual Fund's Balanced Advantage Fund employs a sophisticated rules-based model combining global risk sentiment with four local signals to determine equity allocation. According to reports from The Economic Times, the model can move the fund's equity allocation across predefined brackets ranging from 20% to 90%. The framework combines global risk sentiment with local indicators covering valuation, technicals, local risk sentiment and macroeconomic conditions. Chief Investment Officer Rishi Kohli emphasized that this global-local combination is a significant differentiator, as global signals are not commonly used in Indian fund management.
The model determines appropriate equity exposure through assigned weights to each signal, with the combined score determining the appropriate equity bracket. As reported by The Economic Times, the paper portfolio has maintained a 40% to 60% range over the past six months, moving between slightly overweight and slightly underweight positions. For tax purposes, if the model recommends 50% equities, the portfolio could include 35% fixed income and 15% cash-futures arbitrage, resulting in a 65% equity classification while maintaining economic characteristics of a 50% allocation.
The model evaluates 250 stocks using six factors: momentum, value, low volatility, quality, fundamental momentum and sentiment. According to The Economic Times, the framework begins with an equal-weighted approach but adjusts factor weights based on effectiveness, expected churn and practical portfolio considerations. The resulting portfolio is expected to hold 50 to 75 stocks, with a typical range of 60 to 70 stocks, making it less concentrated than a focused portfolio but less diversified than a broad flexicap strategy.
The fund's top holdings include HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. As reported by The Economic Times, the technical indicators extend beyond momentum to include reversal and breadth indicators for assessing market health and participation breadth. The valuation framework uses traditional measures such as price-to-earnings and price-to-book ratios, but gives greater weight to earnings-bond yield for asset-allocation relevance. The fund has allocated funds majorly across Cash Equivalent, Financial Services, Consumer Cyclical, Energy, Tech, Industrial, Basic Materials, Consumer Defensive, Communication, Health, and Utilities sectors.
The fund follows standard index fund taxation rules: short-term capital gains (less than 1 year) are taxed at 20%, while long-term capital gains (more than 1 year) are taxed at 12.5% without indexation benefit. Dividends are always taxed at slab rate, and long-term gains up to ₹1 lakh are exempt from capital gains tax. As a passive investment replicating Nifty 50 Index composition, the fund is subject to tracking errors, with no assurance that investment objectives will be achieved. The fund offers zero commission investment with no lock-in period.
