"Don't put all of your eggs in one basket!" is an old adage. But, many investors have been ignoring it and often end up heavily skewed in favour of certain investments. They move ahead and invest heavily in one or two equity stocks or a couple of mutual fund schemes without any research. Then feel the pinch when they face heavy losses in such investments. As per investment experts, "Diversification of investment does pay off if it's done systematically considering the asset allocation and goals of an investor."

In the long term, diversified equity mutual funds have given good results. In the examples below you will see some of the best equity diversified mutual funds across large cap funds, mid cap and small cap funds, and dividend yield fund categories.

1. Large Cap Equity Diversified Mutual Funds:

Scheme name	Benchmark index	*Fund Size (Rs Cr)	Total Return (Annualized) %	Expense ratio(%)
			1 yr 2yr 3yr
UTI Opportunities (G)	BSE 100	3,035.8	15.6 9.4 10.3	2.3
ICICI Prudential Focused Bluechip Equity (G)	S&P CNX Nifty	4025.4	11.7 9.9 NA	1.8
Franklin India Bluechip (G)	Sensex	4852.8	9.2 7.8 6.1	1.8
Fidelity Equity (G)	BSE 200	2,792.7	8.8 8 6.4	1.8
Return less than 1-year are absolute and over 1 year are annualized; *Fund size as on Sept 30th, 2012 Returns as on Oct 19th, 2012; n.a. = not applicable Source: Morningstar

UTI Opportunities (G) Objective:

To generate capital appreciation and income distribution by investing the funds of the scheme in equity shares and equity related instruments.

Top Sector Allocation: Financial service, FMCG, energy, information technology and diversified which constitute around 65% of total portfolio.

Investment Style: Investment amongst different sectors as prevailing trends change in Indian economy.

ICICI Prudential Focused Bluechip Equity (G) Objective:

To provide capital appreciation through investment in equity of companies, listed on Sensex and Nifty.

Top Sector Allocation: Financial service, energy, information technology, automobile and FMCG, which constitute around 75% of, total portfolio.

Investment Style: Investing in 20 large cap companies from the top 200 stocks listed on the NSE on the basis of market capitalization.

Franklin India Bluechip (G) Objective:

To provide medium to long term capital appreciation through investment in equity of quality companies and by focusing on well established large sized companies.

Top Sector Allocation: Energy, financial service, information technology, healthcare and telecommunication, which constitute around 65% of total portfolio.

Investment Style: Invests mainly in large cap stocks.

Fidelity Equity (G) Objective:

To achieve risk adjusted returns consistently by investing in stocks across sectors without market capitalization restrictions.

Top Sector Allocation: Financial service, energy, FMCG, information technology and healthcare, which constitute around 70% of, total portfolio.

Investment Style: Bottom up approach

InvestmentYogi.com