Do active Mutual Funds provide alpha? Or is passive investing the best bet?

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Do active Mutual Funds provide alpha? Or is passive investing the best bet?

I was surprised that the average of the best of the best picks by Sohn under performed Sensex and Nifty over 1 and 2 year periods
LINK : https://twitter.com/IndiaER/status/988878527687671808

I then did a research and discovered that CRISIL MF rating are not helpful and 90% of large cap mutual funds UNDERPERFORM the Sensex!!
https://twitter.com/IndiaER/status/1002887917100908545

Why not buy an Sensex ETF/index fund rather than trying to pick a mutual fund?

Based on another discussion today, Deepak Sheny suggested we try this:
Assume you take the top decile fund as of a certain date say 2013. Then you see how those funds did since then even if they are not the top decile now, have they beaten the index.
https://twitter.com/deepakshenoy/status/1010739348667543552


So lets attempt this exercise!

Step 1: How do you get the data for 2013?
I want to try something anyone without access to paid sources can try
So I tried the Internet Archie way back machine. I looked up the large cap funds in Money control on Jan 26 2013

https://web.archive.org/web/20130127111607/http://www.moneycontrol.com:80/mutual-funds/performance-tracker/returns/large-cap.html

There are 51 Large cap mutual funds with 5 year returns. Here are the top 15

Mutual Fund Scheme	Crisil Rank	AUM (Rs. cr.)  Dec 2012	1mth	3mth	6mth	1yr	2yr	3yr	5yr
UTI Opportunities Fund (G)	Rank 1	1764.04	1.4	3.7	15.8	20.7	8.5	11.2	10.7
HDFC Top 200 Fund (G)	Rank 2	12122.23	5	8.3	20.4	24.9	5.1	10.2	10.6
ICICI Pru Top 100 Fund -Inst -I	Not Ranked	19.13	7	11.1	21.5	27.9	10.1	12.2	9.9
Birla SL Frontline Equity -A (G)	Rank 2	2935.67	3.6	9	23.8	29.9	6.8	9.1	9.3
Franklin India Bluechip (G)	Rank 2	5040.43	4.6	9	18.3	21.8	6.2	10	9.0
DSP-BR Top 100 Equity - RP (G)	Rank 3	3429.77	2.9	8.3	19.5	21	6.1	8.6	8.9
L&T; India Large Cap Fund (G)	Rank 2	375.25	3.3	5.1	15.8	17.4	2.8	8.8	8.3
ICICI Pru Top 100 Fund (G)	Rank 2	398.95	6.8	10.7	20.6	26.1	8.6	10.6	8.2
DSP-BR Top 100 Equity - IP (G)	Not Ranked	139.22	2.9	8.5	19.9	21.6	6.5	9.1	8.1
L&T; Equity Fund (G)	Rank 1	2614.55	2.9	5.3	16.6	19	3.7	9.4	8.1
Birla Sun Life Top 100 (G)	Rank 1	297.68	3.4	8.7	21.6	28.8	7.6	9.6	7.5
HDFC Index - Sensex Plus Plan	Rank 2	89.52	4	6	18.2	22.2	5.5	8.8	7.5
Reliance Top 200 Fund-RP (G)	Rank 3	823.61	5	8.4	20.9	30.6	6.7	9.7	7
ICICI Pru Top 200 Fund -Inst -I	Not Ranked	13.48	3.9	8.5	20.3	28.4	5.9	9.5	6.5
Sahara Growth Fund (G)	Not Ranked	10.9	2.7	4.9	17.1	21.1	4.9	5.2	6.4

* Returns over 1 year are Annualised

What is the performance of the top decline (top 6) in last 5 years? I took 6 as DSP-BR and Franklin India Blue Clip returns weer very close.

Names for almost all of them had changed. Again sued moneycontrol for the latest details
http://www.moneycontrol.com/mutual-funds/performance-tracker/returns/large-cap.html

Mutual Fund Scheme (2013 name)	Mutual Fund Scheme (2018 name)	5 YEAR RETURNS Annualised %
UTI Opportunities Fund (G)	UTI Value Opportunities Fund (G)	14.7
HDFC Top 200 Fund (G)	HDFC Top 100 Fund (G)	16.5
ICICI Pru Top 100 Fund -Inst -I	ICICI Prudential Large & Mid Cap Fund (G)	16.8
Birla SL Frontline Equity -A (G)	ABSL FrontlIne Equity (G)	17.9
Franklin India Bluechip (G)	Franklin India Bluechip (G)	15.3
DSP-BR Top 100 Equity - RP (G)	DSP-BR Top 100 Equity - RP (G)	14.8
	Average	16.0
	ICICI Prudential Nifty ETF	15.3
	ICICI Pru Nifty Next 50 Index - D (G)	20.6
	Average (Nifty top 100)	18.0

The top 6 funds outperformed Nifty 50. But they typically invest in top 100 not 50 stocks. So if I take right average. Nifty 50 and Nifty next 50, even best large caps don;t beat the index.

This is a quick exercise and I may have mad some errors. All links are updated and please feel free to correct and update me if any errors!