Net Asset ValueNAV
The per-unit price of a fund — (assets − liabilities) ÷ units, struck once a day. The atom everything else is measured in.
Why you care
NAV is the price of one unit of your fund: assets minus liabilities, divided by the number of units, struck once at the day's close. Every rupee you put in buys units at that price, and every return you earn shows up as that price moving. It's the atom the rest of this map is priced in.
Run the numbers
A fund holds ₹502 cr net across 25 cr units, so NAV is ₹20.08 (illustrative). Put in ₹10,000 and you get ~498 units. If the portfolio rises 1% overnight, NAV becomes ~₹20.28 and your holding is worth ₹10,100. Your units stay fixed; the price is what moves.
Where this goes
NAV doesn't move because more people want the fund. It moves because the portfolio is repriced to market every evening. That daily movement, once cost is stripped out, is your net return. And a high NAV is not "expensive" — it tells you nothing about what the fund earns next.
Why you care
Net Asset Value (NAV) is the per-unit price of a mutual fund. Take everything the fund owns (its shares, bonds, cash), subtract what it owes (payables, accrued expenses), and divide by the number of units investors hold. That single number is struck once a day, after markets close.
The reason NAV is worth pinning down first is that it's the unit of account for everything downstream. You don't own "₹10,000 of the fund" — you own a fixed number of units, bought at that day's NAV, and your money grows or shrinks as the NAV does. This also clears up the most common beginner mistake: thinking a fund with a ₹10 NAV is "cheaper" or has "more room to grow" than one at ₹200. It doesn't. NAV is not a stock price set by demand for the fund; it's an accounting value of what one unit already owns. A ₹10 fund and a ₹200 fund that both hold the same portfolio will give you the exact same return. You just hold more units of the first.
Run the numbers
Take a fund on a single day (illustrative):
| Item | ₹ |
|---|---|
| Market value of shares & bonds held | 500 cr |
| Cash & receivables | 3 cr |
| Less: payables & accrued expenses | (1 cr) |
| Net assets | 502 cr |
| Units outstanding | 25 cr |
| NAV = 502 ÷ 25 | ₹20.08 |
Invest ₹10,000 today and you're allotted 10,000 ÷ 20.08 = 498.0 units. Now the portfolio rises 1% the next day: net assets become ~₹507 cr, units don't change, so NAV becomes ~₹20.28. Your 498 units are now worth ₹10,100. The whole of your gain arrived as a change in price per unit, not a change in how many units you hold. That is the mechanism the entire return side of this map is built on.
Where this goes
NAV changes for one reason: the fund's holdings are marked to market at each day's close. The published price already reflects what the portfolio is worth that evening, net of the fund's daily cost. What you're watching, in other words, is your net return after TER made visible in a price. Track that NAV growth across a holding period and annualise it, and you have the fund's CAGR. One practical wrinkle sits alongside all this: which day's NAV you're given depends on when your money reaches the fund, not when you click "invest".