The NAV of the fund has risen to Rs 19.66 as on December 14 from Rs 15.87 as on March 31 and Rs 14.46 on September 30, 1998, giving a return of 23.88 per cent since March 31. During the same period, the BSE-30 Sensex has dropped from 3,892.80 levels as on March 31 to 2,810.66 as on November 30, a drop of 27.79 per cent. The fund has thus outperformed the Sensex by a whopping 51.67 per cent.

Alliance Capital has constructed its own benchmark index for the fund, as it is a balanced scheme, taking 60 per cent of the BSE 200 and 40 per cent debt. Debt is assumed to give a return of 14 per cent. The scheme has beaten its balanced benchmark for the quarter ended September 30 by 14.53 per cent.

Theperformance of the scheme can also be gauged from the fact that the scheme has a per unit net income of Rs 2.20 for the period ended September 30 as compared to a negative per unit net income of Rs 0.02 during the corresponding period last year.

The portfolio churning has seen its equity exposure drop 60 per cent as on September 30 compared to 70.65 per cent as on March 31, 1998. The automobile and ancillary equity portion has seen the entrance of Hero Honda. In the capital goods sector, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has entered with the departure of Carrier Aircon. The downstream oil and gas sector has seen departure of Cochin Refineries.

Exposure to Zee Telefilms has been reduced from 5.99 per cent to 4.95 per cent. Investments in information technology has seen new entrants like Leading Edge, Pentafour Software, Silverline Industries and Software Solutions. Investments in fixed income has increased to 28.91 per cent of the corpus from 23.62 per cent with fixed income instruments of Arvind Mills, BombayOil Industries, Ciba-Ckd Biochem, Hoechst Schering Agrevo, ICICI, Kotak Mahindra and Tata Finance being the new entrants. Exposure to call and money market has also increased to 12.15 per cent of the corpus from 5.73 per cent as on March 31, 1998.