Equity vs Hybrid Long-Short SIFs: 24 Funds, NAVs and Fees Compared

Most articles on equity vs hybrid long-short SIFs compare rulebooks. An investor with ₹10 lakh faces a narrower question: which of the 24 live strategies has done what with its money, and at what cost?

The answer sits in public data. Every Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) publishes a daily NAV, a daily expense ratio and a portfolio every alternate month, and AMFI hosts all of it. We found no ranking page that puts it in one place on one date.

This guide does. All NAVs are direct-plan growth options from AMFI's NAV history on 26 October 2026, with returns measured from the ₹10 face value (₹1,000 for two funds). Expense ratios average AMFI's daily disclosures for September 2026. Nothing here ranks long-short SIFs for purchase.

One warning: the oldest strategy has just over a year of NAVs, and 13 of the 24 have less than six months. Treat every return figure as an early reading, not a track record.

A separate post in this series compares the two rulebooks in detail. Here is the one-paragraph version you need to read the data.

SEBI's SIF framework of 27 February 2025 sets the boundaries. An equity long-short SIF must keep at least 80% in equity and equity-related instruments and may take up to 25% of net assets in unhedged short positions through derivatives; it may redeem as often as daily. A hybrid long-short SIF must keep at least 25% in equity and at least 25% in debt, may also short up to 25%, and is an interval strategy that redeems at most twice a week. Both need a minimum of ₹10 lakh per investor across all strategies of one SIF, measured at PAN level, though the minimum does not apply to accredited investors. Tax depends on how much listed equity a strategy actually holds, so check each fund's stated treatment and consult a tax adviser before investing.

Long-short investing is old; Alfred Winslow Jones is usually credited with the first hedged fund in 1949. What is new is a mutual-fund-style Indian wrapper with a ₹10 lakh ticket. The timeline uses AMFI NAV records.

The money has gone mostly one way. On 30 September 2026, AMFI's SIF monthly report showed ₹23,956.90 crore in hybrid long-short strategies across 58,178 folios, against ₹4,216.06 crore in equity long-short across 29,856 folios. Hybrid long-short alone held about 63% of the industry's ₹38,286.94 crore. In September, hybrid long-short drew net inflows of ₹4,486.12 crore; equity long-short drew ₹895.21 crore.

Two sister categories sit outside this comparison of equity vs hybrid long-short SIFs: Equity Ex-Top 100 Long-Short (7 strategies, ₹7,595.35 crore) and Active Asset Allocator Long-Short (3 strategies, ₹2,456.23 crore).

Long-short SIFs are among the most transparent products an Indian HNI can buy.

• Daily NAVs. AMFI's SIF NAV page carries every plan's latest NAV, and its NAV history tool returns the full daily series for any plan since launch.
• Daily expense ratios. AMFI's TER page for SIFs reports each plan's expense ratio every day, split into four parts. Under Regulation 67 of the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 2026, as AMC offer documents describe it, total expenses are the base expense ratio (BER) plus brokerage, transaction costs and statutory levies. The BER covers management and running costs. The other three rise and fall with trading.
• Portfolios. SEBI requires every SIF to publish its full portfolio, including derivatives, as of the end of every alternate month (May, July, September, November, January and March), in a downloadable spreadsheet on the AMC and AMFI websites within 10 days.
• Factsheets. Some fund houses now publish daily long, short and net exposure and portfolio beta; quant's qsif factsheet is the most detailed so far.

Thirteen equity long-short SIF strategies had NAVs on 26 October 2026. They are listed by first NAV date, not by merit; launch dates, minimums and exit loads are on AMFI's SIF scheme-details page.

Seven of the 13 sat below their issue price on 26 October. That says more about when they launched than about skill: many opened into a falling market in September and October 2026.

AMFI publishes size by category, not by fund. Fund-level figures come from AMC factsheets and data platforms. Quant's factsheet put qsif Equity Long-Short at ₹1,018 crore on 30 September 2026, the largest in the category. Data platform Advisorkhoj, on 26 October, showed regular-plan assets of roughly ₹400 crore for iSIF, ₹370 crore for DynaSIF, ₹317 crore for Diviniti and ₹276 crore for Titanium, with WSIF near ₹34 crore. Small size is not a flaw, but fixed costs weigh more.

Eleven hybrid long-short SIF strategies had NAVs on 26 October 2026, matching AMFI's count for 30 September.

Only one of the 11 was below its issue price on 26 October: Titanium Hybrid, by 0.36%.

The equity column matters more than any other in this table. Four hybrids, including SBI's Magnum along with Titanium, iSIF and Platinum, must keep 65–75% in equity, and their offer documents allow most of that to be hedged through arbitrage and derivatives. Three, led by Bandhan's Arudha with Apex and qsif, sit at 35–65%. Four, including Edelweiss's Altiva with RedHex, Infinity and Prism, have wide ranges from 25% or 35% up to 75%.

A 65–75% hybrid usually holds mostly hedged equity, which behaves like an arbitrage book, plus a debt sleeve. A 35–65% hybrid carries more debt and more room to shift. Same label, different engines, possibly different tax.

Size is concentrated too. Cafemutual, citing SIFPrime data, reported average assets for the September quarter of about ₹8,322 crore for Altiva Hybrid and ₹3,899 crore for Magnum Hybrid. Together that is roughly half of the category's month-end total, although average and month-end figures are not strictly comparable. Quant's qsif Hybrid, the best performer by far, was a much smaller ₹663 crore on 30 September.

The rules set limits; portfolios show choices. The snapshots below come from factsheets and data platforms.

Quant's factsheet gives the clearest picture. During September 2026, qsif Equity Long-Short ran average equity deployment of about 92%, with unhedged longs of about 77%, shorts of about 15% and net exposure of about 62%. Month-end portfolio beta was 0.54, meaning the fund was expected to move about half as much as the market. Its largest unhedged positions were Indus Towers at 9.47% of NAV and National Stock Exchange of India at 8.25%, and the manager reported being overweight telecom and power and underweight financial services.

Other equity long-short funds look far less hedged on some days. Tickertape's data for Sapphire Equity Long-Short SIF on 26 October 2026 showed 93.75% in equity, 6.25% in cash and futures and options at about zero, with HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries as the top holdings. On that day, Sapphire was in effect a long-only portfolio led by large banks, with the option to short.

That gap, from about 62% net to nearly full exposure, is the biggest difference between equity long-short SIFs. It decides how far each falls in a sell-off.

Quant's qsif Hybrid Long-Short, again from its factsheet, averaged equity deployment of about 58% in September, unhedged longs of about 45%, shorts of about 13% and net equity exposure of about 32%, with a month-end beta of just 0.06. The debt book had a yield to maturity of 5.94% and a modified duration of 0.27 years, so it carried little interest-rate risk. Debt excluding tri-party repo was about 26% of the fund, of which 43% was sovereign, 20% AAA and 37% AA+.

The surprise is in the top holdings. The largest unhedged position was ESDS Software Solution at 12.74% of NAV, followed by a Capri Global Capital commercial paper at 9.53% and IRB InvIT Fund at 6.92%. Dezerv's breakdown of the same portfolio showed small caps at 12.80% of the fund against 3.10% in large caps. This is a hybrid fund taking concentrated small-cap bets, which explains much of its return and much of its risk.

ICICI Prudential's iSIF Hybrid, whose offer document sets 65–75% equity and 25–35% debt, looks more like a traditional balanced book. Groww's holdings data on 26 October listed 95 positions across equities, corporate bonds, government securities, Treasury bills, index and stock derivatives and repo, with the largest single lines at about 7.5% in repo and 4.8% in TVS Motor.

The tables below measure SIF returns since launch from face value to the 26 October 2026 NAV, the three months from 30 June to 30 September 2026, and the maximum drawdown, which is the largest peak-to-trough fall in the daily NAV since launch. All figures are direct-plan growth, computed from AMFI's NAV history, and none is annualised. Funds with less than a month of NAVs are left out.

For reference, quant's factsheet put the Nifty 500 TRI at -3.73% over the same three months. Seven of the nine equity funds with a full quarter beat that, and the median since launch is -0.64%. The spread is wide: 21 percentage points separate qsif and Diviniti.

The Nifty 50 Hybrid Composite Debt 50:50 Index, qsif's benchmark, fell 3.02% over the same quarter. Every hybrid with a full quarter except Magnum and Titanium was positive. The median long-short SIF performance since launch in this category is +2.51%.

One fund distorts every average. qsif Hybrid's NAV rose from 11.1261 on 31 August to 13.3624 on 15 September 2026, a gain of about 20% in two weeks, which is unusual for any hybrid. Strip it out and the equal-weighted average since launch for the other ten falls from 5.24% to 3.13%.

The more useful pattern is the drawdown column. The three hybrids with the deepest falls (iSIF, Titanium and qsif) all launched before the March 2026 market low and hit their lowest NAVs in late March. The four with drawdowns under 1% (Arudha, RedHex, Prism and Apex) launched after that low or run a 35–65% design.

September 2026 was the first broad test that most of these funds faced together. Quant's factsheet records the Nifty 500 TRI down 6.16% for the month and the Nifty 50 Hybrid Composite Debt 50:50 Index down 3.61%.

Nine of ten equity long-short funds fell less than the broad market, though most still lost 3% to 5%. Diviniti fell slightly more than the Nifty 500 TRI; its own benchmark is the Nifty 50 TRI.

Hybrids did what conservative investors hope for. Eight of the 11 lost less than 1.5% or gained, and five ended the month positive. The 1–26 October readings continued the pattern, with equity long-short funds giving up a further 0.6% to 3.6% and most hybrids moving 1.3% or less.

Earlier, an Ionic Wealth study reported by 5paisa found that equity long-short SIFs captured 59% of the Nifty 50's 15.2% fall from 2 January to 30 March 2026, against 92% for large-cap mutual funds.

The SIF expense ratio you see on a fund page is now a sum. AMFI's daily data splits it into the base expense ratio plus brokerage, transaction costs and statutory levies, the structure Edelweiss's Altiva Equity Long-Short offer document sets out under Regulation 67. The table shows September 2026 averages of the daily figures for direct plans, and the regular-plan BER for comparison.

Three things stand out.

1. Trading costs dominate in equity long-short. BERs cluster between 0.4% and 0.85%, but totals run from 0.71% to 4.19%. A strategy that trades and rolls derivatives heavily can see brokerage, transaction costs and levies add three times its base fee. Apex's low total reflects a fund in its first month, not a settled cost level.
2. Hybrids are cheaper. The median direct total was 1.25% for hybrids against 2.34% for equity long-short.
3. Regular plans cost much more. Most equity long-short regular plans charge a BER of about 2.1%, roughly 1 to 1.7 percentage points above the direct plan, before trading costs.

The trading component moves daily, so check the latest month on AMFI's TER page.

Under SEBI's circular, the ₹10 lakh threshold is per SIF, not per strategy. An investor in Altiva SIF, for example, can split ₹10 lakh between its equity long-short, equity ex-top-100 and hybrid strategies. Investing with two fund houses needs ₹10 lakh at each.

Hybrid redemption days differ by fund; quant's factsheet lists every Tuesday and Wednesday for qsif Hybrid. Money is locked between windows, so confirm the days first.

Exit loads on AMFI's scheme pages range from nil to 1% for 12 months, and some fund houses have changed them since launch. Quant's October factsheet, for instance, shows a different exit load from its AMFI listing, so read the latest offer document and addenda.

A year of NAVs is short, but some advantages already show up in the numbers.

• Smaller falls in bad months. Nine of ten equity long-short funds fell less than the Nifty 500 TRI in September 2026.
• Shallow drawdowns in most hybrids. Seven of 11 hybrid long-short funds have never fallen more than 3% from a peak.
• Lower costs in the hybrid category. A median direct expense ratio of 1.25% is competitive for a strategy that uses derivatives actively.
• Public, daily evidence. Daily NAVs, daily expense ratios and bi-monthly portfolios let you check a manager's claims yourself.
• One ticket, several strategies. The PAN-level ₹10 lakh threshold lets you combine equity and hybrid strategies inside one SIF.
• Daily liquidity on the equity side. Equity long-short strategies are open-ended, and the offer documents we checked allow redemption on every business day.

That makes long-short SIFs simpler to own than a Category III AIF, with its ₹1 crore ticket and private reporting.

The tables above answer "what has each SIF done?" The harder question is "what else could this ₹10 lakh do?" That is where PMS Sahi Hai fits, with one limit stated up front: PMS Sahi Hai does not list or score SIFs. SIFs are mutual fund products, so for fund-level SIF data the primary sources remain AMFI and each fund house, as used throughout this guide.

What the platform does cover is the alternatives that compete for the same money.

• The higher-ticket version of the same idea. The AIF comparison page lists Category III AIFs, including long-short funds, with strategy, vintage, lock-in and a Nyra Score shown side by side. If you have ₹1 crore and are weighing a long-short SIF against a Category III fund, start there, and read our long-short funds comparison of AIFs and SIFs for the structural differences.
• The PMS alternative. If your choice is between a ₹10 lakh SIF and a ₹50 lakh PMS, our SIF vs PMS guide sets out minimums, costs and control.
• Nyra for rule-level questions. Nyra, the platform's AI research analyst, is described as grounded in SEBI, AMC and IFSCA primary sources, citing its working and declining to answer when no verifiable source exists. It is an analytical tool, not a SEBI-registered investment adviser.
• A track-record rule worth borrowing. Under the Nyra methodology, strategies with less than 12 months of history are "Not Rated". On that standard, 21 of the 24 SIF strategies in this guide would not yet earn a score, which is a useful reminder of how early these numbers are.

New to the wrapper itself? Our explainer on what a SIF is covers the basics this guide skips.

• No full cycle. Nothing here has lived through a long bull market or a long bear market.
• Launch timing drives returns. Funds that launched just before the March 2026 low look worse than funds that launched just after it, for reasons that have little to do with skill.
• Averages are skewed. qsif Hybrid's September surge lifts every hybrid average. Its largest unhedged position was 12.74% of NAV in a single stock, a concentration few hybrid investors would expect.
• Hedging is a choice, not a guarantee. Some equity long-short funds hold almost no shorts on a given day.
• Liquidity is real in hybrids. Interval windows mean you cannot exit on the day you choose.
• Data sources disagree. We found swapped return columns and conflicting exit loads across platforms while preparing this guide.

• If you want equity returns with smaller falls and can hold for five years or more, the equity long-short category fits. Quant's factsheet rates its equity strategy for a horizon of five years and above.
• If you want a debt-plus or conservative-hybrid alternative and can live with twice-a-week liquidity, the hybrid long-short category fits. Quant rates its hybrid for three years and above.

1. Check the design range. For hybrids, read the equity range in the offer document: 65–75% and 35–65% funds behave and may be taxed differently. For equity funds, ask for average net exposure.
2. Look at drawdown before return. Pull the NAV history from AMFI and find the largest fall since launch. Compare it with the return.
3. Read the latest portfolio. Open the bi-monthly disclosure and look at the five largest unhedged positions. Concentration shows up there first.
4. Use the right expense figure. Take the latest month's total direct expense ratio from AMFI, not the BER alone, and avoid regular plans unless you are paying for advice.
5. Confirm liquidity and loads. Note redemption days, notice periods and exit loads from the latest offer document and addenda.

Repeat the check every quarter; with long-short SIFs this young, the picture will change quickly.

On one year of evidence, the two categories are doing different jobs. Equity long-short SIFs have cushioned falls but have not yet made money for most investors, with a median since-launch return of -0.64% and a median drawdown of 7.68%. Hybrid long-short SIFs have been steadier and cheaper, with a median return of +2.51% and a median drawdown of 2.41%, though their average is flattered by one fund.

Neither category of long-short SIFs is a buy or a sell on these numbers. The data is good enough to rule funds out on costs, concentration and drawdowns, not yet good enough to rule any fund in on returns alone. When the real choice is between a SIF and a PMS or Category III AIF, PMS Sahi Hai's comparison pages and Nyra help you weigh the alternatives on the same evidence-first basis.

Before you commit ₹10 lakh, pull three things for every fund on your list: the NAV history and drawdown from AMFI, the latest month's total expense ratio, and the most recent portfolio disclosure. Then decide which job you are hiring the money for: hedged equity or a steadier hybrid. Speak to a tax adviser about how the strategy you choose will be taxed, and revisit the numbers every quarter while these funds build their records.

If a long-short SIF is one option among several, put it next to the PMS and AIF alternatives on PMS Sahi Hai's comparison tools, and ask Nyra the rule-level questions, with sources, before you decide.