The broader markets outshined benchmarks in June 2021, with Nifty 50 rising by less than 1 percent. While the second pandemic wave has now plateaued, noise about valuations, long line of IPOs and economic growth has held back the largecap indices to make any meaningful ascent.

Naturally, the PMS universe has performed better than markets, with 224 of the 235 strategies tracked by PMS Bazaar beating the Nifty 50 in June. Top performers belonged to midcap, smallcap, multicap and small & midcap categories. With PMS funds playing the cyclical recovery story, the strategies have shown better performance. We look at monthly performance in detail.

Stock market backdrop

The month of June has seen restrictions easing mobility across most states. Improvement in Covid-19 related data has given the local state governments more headroom to relax restrictions and allow routine economic activity. This has made the stock market buoyancy shift to midcap and smallcap segments, as the larger economy gets a shot at revival. Since May 2020, the midcap index has not given a negative monthly return till-date. Even the small-cap index has given negative monthly returns only once in the past more than one year.

Best strategies of the month

We take a look at the 10 best PMS strategies of June 2021. Ranked No. 1 is Bonanza Value PMS with a whopping 14.09 percent return. This is also the best return among the multicap category. No. 2 is Right Horizons Minerva Under-served PMS strategy with an impressive 13.26 percent, the highest among smallcap funds. No. 3 is Roha Asset Managers Emerging Champions with 13.13 percent, the best performance by a Small & midcap strategy in June 2021.

Following the top-3 are Green Portfolio Dividend Yield (up 11.21 percent), Motilal Oswal Focused Midcap (up 10.74 percent), Carnelian Asset Advisors Shift Strategy (up 10.61 percent), Turtle Wealth 212° Growth Mantra (up 10.39 percent), Moat Financial Services Mid & Small Cap Portfolio (up 9.87 percent), Capgrow Capital Advisors Special Situations (up 9.49 percent) and Equirus Securities Long Horizon (up 9.46 percent).

Do note that Carnelian's Shift and Equirus' Long Horizon were also in the Top-10 list in May 2021.

Category spotlight

Now, let us take a look at how main PMS categories have performed vis-a-vis performance range, benchmarks etc. Do note that we will not cover tiny categories (in terms of strategy count).

Largecap - There are 2 dozen PMS funds in this category. In June 2021, the Largecap PMS category outperformed the Nifty 50 with an average gain of 1.92 percent. J M Financial Growth & Value (up 4.16 percent), Wize Market Analytics Capital Mind - Market Fund (up 4.06 percent) and Chanakya PMS (up 3.18 percent) were the best performers.

Large & Midcap - This category has 5 schemes. In June 2021, the Large & Midcap PMS category on average delivered 2.52 percent gain, with all in Positive. The best performer list starts with IDFC AMC Neo Equity (up 3.31%) , Emkay Lead (up 3.28%) and Care Portfolio Large & Midcap(3.00%).

Midcap - There are 22 PMS funds in this category. The category average gain was a robust 5.24 percent in June 2021, which is higher compared to Nifty Midcap 100's return of 4.64 percent in the month. The 3 best performers were Motilal Oswal Focused Midcap (up 10.74 percent), Invesco Caterpillar (up 7.36 percent) and Centrum PMS Deep Value (up 7 percent).

Multicap - This is the biggest category tracked by PMS Bazaar. There are put together more than 130 schemes. The category average return in June 2021 was 4.14 percent, which is more than double compared to the benchmark BSE 500 that generated less than 2 percent return in this month. The top 3 performers of this mammoth category are also among the Top-10 of June 2021 overall i.e. Bonanza Value, Carnelian Shift and Turtle Wealth 212° Growth Mantra, whose returns have been mentioned in the previous section.

Sector - There are 6 funds in the PMS Sector Strategy bucket. The category average gain in June 2021 stands at 1.74 percent. Notable performers in June 2021 were Nafa AMC Valcreate Speciality Opportunity Series 1 (up 2.89 percent) , Kotak Pharma (up 2.44 percent) and Marcellus Kings of Capital (up 1.84%)

Small & Midcap - This category has 15 tracked PMS strategies. In June 2021, the category  clocked a whopping 6.22 percent average gain. The 3 best performing strategies of the month clocked 9-13 percent gains and were Roha Asset Managers Emerging Champions, Moat Financial Services Mid & Small Cap Portfolio and Equirus Securities Long Horizon, all of which have been discussed in the overall best performers section above.

Smallcap - This popular category has 15 PMS strategies, and its average return in June was 5.98 percent, which is lower than BSE Small Cap index's 6.93 percent in the same month. The 3 best performers are Right Horizons Minerva India Under-Served (up 13.26 percent), Accuracap Dynamo (up 9 percent) and Fort Capital Investment Advisory Value Fund (up 7.91 percent).

Thematic - There are 6 PMS thematic funds. The category average gain for June 2021 was 5.27 percent. The notable performers for this month are Green Portfolio's Dividend Yield (up 11.21 percent), MNC Advantage (up 7.22 percent), and Incred Healthcare Portfolio (up 6.60 percent).