Blog

How long should you hold a mutual fund? What the windows show

By ReturnKoto? Published Updated

The same funds look different over one year and over five. Comparing the two windows side by side is the cheapest lesson in why holding period matters.

These figures update themselves. Every number below is recalculated from NAV history each day, so this page is current as of 24 September 2026 rather than the day it was written.

Every fund prospectus in Bangladesh says something about a long-term horizon. Almost none of them show you what the difference between horizons actually looks like.

The two windows on this site do exactly that, using the same funds and the same method.

The short window

Over 2 years, all 35 tracked funds can be ranked together, and the leader is VIPB Fixed Income Fund at 20.00% a year. The weakest returned 0.34%.

The long window

Over 5 years, only 27 funds have enough history to appear. The leader there is Shanta Fixed Income Fund at 8.53%.

Notice what happened to the numbers. The best figure over the longer window is lower than the best over the shorter one. That is the usual pattern, and it is not a sign that funds got worse.

A short window can sit entirely inside a good stretch. A longer window almost always contains a bad one as well, and averaging a bad stretch in pulls the annual figure down. The longer number is less flattering and more representative.

Over 2 years35 funds · 0.34% to 20.00% · spread 19.66 pts

avg 9.40%

Over 5 years27 funds · -1.69% to 8.53% · spread 10.22 pts

avg 3.87%
0%5%10%15%20%

Tap or point at a dot to see the fund.

Return per year for every fund with enough history, one row per window on a shared scale; dot colour is fund type. The band runs from the lowest to the highest fund, the tick is the average. Dividends reinvested, through 24 September 2026.

The overlap is the useful part

Only 4 of the 35 funds appear in the upper group on both windows: Shanta Fixed Income Fund, Ekush Growth Fund, EDGE Bangladesh Mutual Fund, EDGE AMC Growth Fund.

That is the closest thing to a consistency signal available here, and it is deliberately a weak one. A fund can lead a short window by catching a favourable few months. Leading across both windows means it held up through more than one kind of market, which is harder to do by luck.

The chart below follows every fund with the longer record from one window to the other. The green lines are the funds in the upper group on both.

Rank over 2 yearsRank over 5 years

Tap a fund to follow its line.

The 27 funds with at least 5 years of history. Left: each fund’s rank among all 35 tracked funds over 2 years; right: its rank among these 27 over 5 years. Annualised total return, dividends reinvested, through 24 September 2026. "Higher" and "lower" compare the fund’s place in the two columns.

It is still not a forecast. It is a filter that removes funds whose record rests on a single good run.

What a holding period actually decides

Two practical things, both visible in the figures on this site.

Whether you are forced to sell at a bad moment. A fund's NAV on any given day is whatever the portfolio is worth that day, and over a few months it can sit below what you paid. Across the 35 tracked funds the weakest 2 years result was 0.34% a year, so a short hold in the wrong fund was genuinely capable of going nowhere.

Whether dividends have time to compound. Reinvested payouts buy units that then earn payouts of their own. Over 2 years that effect is small, which is why the reinvested and cash-taken figures sit close together on short windows. Over the 5 years window the two drift further apart, and that gap is entirely compounding. It is not always in reinvesting's favour: a payout reinvested just before the NAV fell can trail the cash kept aside, which is why the ranges below include negative figures.

Extra from reinvesting, middle fund, on ৳1,00,000 put in once

  1. 1 year35 funds৳10Range across these funds: −৳670 to ৳530
  2. 2 years35 funds৳290Range across these funds: −৳610 to ৳1,770
  3. 3 years33 funds৳300Range across these funds: −৳360 to ৳3,320
  4. 5 years27 funds৳2,130Range across these funds: −৳1,670 to ৳9,330
  5. 10 years4 funds৳17,530Range across these funds: ৳11,670 to ৳25,260
Each window compares the same funds two ways: dividends reinvested in new units, against dividends taken as cash and kept aside (not reinvested, not earning). The bar is the middle fund of those with that much history, so the longer windows cover fewer, older funds. NAV history through 24 September 2026.

For the middle fund, reinvesting instead of taking cash added ৳10 per ৳1,00,000 over one year, and ৳2,130 over 5 years.

The honest limit

A longer hold does not guarantee a better result. A poorly run fund stays poorly run, and time does not repair it: the weakest funds over 5 years are not rescued by the extra years.

What the longer window buys is a more reliable read on which fund is which. Of 35 funds, only 4 held an upper position on both windows, and that filter is only visible because the longer history exists. Figures through 24 September 2026.

Common questions

Is there a minimum sensible holding period?

This site does not give personal advice. What the data shows is that the shortest windows are the most sensitive to the particular months they cover, and that dividends need years rather than months to compound meaningfully.

Why can I not see every fund over the longer window?

Because only 27 of the 35 funds have that much tracked history. Showing a fund over a period it did not exist for would be inventing history.

Does a fund leading both windows mean it will keep leading?

No. It means its record does not depend on one good stretch, which is a filter rather than a prediction.

Do these figures assume I reinvested dividends?

Yes, that is the default basis. You can switch any figure on the site to treat dividends as cash instead.

Further reading on this site

Run these numbers on your own amount

Read next