Trailing return is the annualised return measured from a fixed period (1 year, 3 years, 5 years) in the past up to today — the standard industry metric for comparing funds.
Trailing returns calculate annualised performance from a fixed point in the past to the current date. '3-year trailing return' means the annualised return from 3 years ago until today. This is the most commonly used return metric in mutual fund factsheets, platforms like Moneycontrol, Value Research, and AMFI's own website. Trailing returns update daily as today's NAV changes — a significant market movement today changes the 1-year trailing return of every fund immediately.
The '5-year return' column on Groww or Zerodha is the trailing return — it's the annualised performance from 5 years ago to today. It's the industry standard for comparison. If today is August 2025, the 3-year trailing return = annualised performance from August 2022 to August 2025.
1-year trailing = (Current NAV ÷ NAV 1 year ago)^1 − 1.
3-year trailing = (Current NAV ÷ NAV 3 years ago)^(1/3) − 1.
Same formula as point-to-point but the start date is always exactly 1/3/5/10 years before today.
Updated daily — today's market movement changes trailing returns of all funds.