The best performing mutual funds in Pakistan depend on which year you ask

Over the last twelve months, the most boring fund in Pakistan beat the stock market.

The median money market fund returned 10.5%. The KSE-100 returned 6.2%. The median equity fund, after its fees, returned 2.4%.

Stretch the window to three years and the table flips. The KSE-100 is up 223%. The median equity fund is up 200%. The median money market fund is up 49%.

So when someone asks me which mutual fund in Pakistan performed best, my honest answer is a question back: over what period, and in which category? Below are the top funds in each category on both clocks, so you can watch the flip happen.

How I measured this

Every figure here is a total return: the change in a fund's NAV with every payout reinvested on its ex-date, after the fund's own fees. Returns are cumulative, not annualised, and run to 30 October 2026. They come from the free Pakistani mutual fund API I maintain, which pulls daily NAVs and payouts from MUFAP and checks itself against MUFAP's own performance summary.

Total return matters more than most fund apps admit. Pak Qatar Daily Dividend Plan, a Shariah money market fund, ended the year at exactly the NAV it started at. Watch the price and you'd say it made nothing. It paid out 355 times in those twelve months, and an investor who reinvested earned 11.03%.

Two more rules. I only compare funds over identical dates, so a fund whose price history starts on a different day is left out of that ranking. And I left income funds out of this round: a few of them have payout records I want to check by hand before they go in a league table.

Which money market funds returned the most?

Over the last year, to 30 October 2026, with expense ratios in brackets:

• Alfalah Money Market Fund II: 11.23% (0.48%)
• JS Money Market Fund: 11.04% (0.05%)
• UBL Liquidity Fund: 11.01% (0.47%)
• AKD Cash Fund: 10.99% (0.61%)
• Alfalah Cash Fund II and NIT Money Market Fund: 10.98% each (0.68% and 0.75%)

The whole category sits inside a band of under two percentage points, from 9.43% at the bottom (Askari Cash Fund) to 11.23% at the top. When every fund holds roughly the same treasury bills, the fee does most of the separating.

JS Investments shows it neatly, because it runs two money market funds side by side. JS Money Market Fund charged 0.05% and returned 11.04%. JS Cash Fund charged 1.66% and returned 9.93%. Same manager, same kind of paper, about a point apart.

Which Shariah money market funds returned the most?

• AWT Islamic Money Market Fund: 11.19% (0.83%)
• Atlas Islamic Money Market Fund: 11.05% (0.26%)
• Pak Qatar Daily Dividend Plan: 11.03% (0.65%)
• Pak Qatar Cash Plan: 10.95% (0.58%)
• Al Ameen Islamic Cash Plan I: 10.84% (0.53%)

The Shariah median was 10.53%, a hair above the conventional one. If you want an Islamic product for your cash, you aren't giving anything up for it right now.

Which equity funds performed best in Pakistan?

This is where the clock matters most. The top five conventional equity funds over the last year:

• HBL Investment Fund Class B: 27.81%
• HBL Growth Fund Class B: 25.00%
• HBL Energy Fund: 24.44%
• HBL Stock Fund: 14.96%
• MCB Pakistan Stock Market Fund: 11.36%

Four of the five are HBL's. HBL also owns the bottom two: the Class A units of HBL Investment Fund and HBL Growth Fund each lost about 17.5% while their Class B units gained 25% to 28%. Same names, very different holdings. If you buy a fund by name, check which class you're getting.

Now the top five over three years:

• NBP Financial Sector Fund: 336.57%
• AL Habib Stock Fund: 289.81%
• MCB Pakistan Stock Market Fund: 274.07%
• UBL Financial Sector Fund: 267.57%
• UBL Stock Advantage Fund: 228.60%

One fund makes both lists: MCB Pakistan Stock Market Fund. The rest swap out completely. My favourite detail in the whole dataset: last year's best equity fund, HBL Investment Fund Class B, returned 199.97% over three years. To the decimal, that's the median equity fund. AL Habib Stock Fund goes the other way: second over three years, ninth over the last one at 5.00%.

Which Shariah equity funds performed best?

Over the last year:

• NBP Islamic Energy Fund: 19.73%
• Alhamra Opportunity Fund (Dividend Strategy Plan): 19.27%
• HBL Islamic Stock Fund: 13.55%
• HBL Islamic Equity Fund: 12.87%
• Al Ameen Islamic Energy Fund: 10.22%

Over three years:

• AL Habib Islamic Stock Fund: 228.22%
• NBP Islamic Energy Fund: 226.43%
• Al Ameen Islamic Energy Fund: 215.77%
• Al Ameen Shariah Stock Fund: 200.99%
• NBP Islamic Stock Fund: 192.21%

The Shariah side is steadier at the top. NBP Islamic Energy Fund is first over one year and second over three, and both energy funds appear on both lists. Two funds, Alhamra Islamic Stock Fund and Meezan Energy Fund, would have placed on the three-year list, but their price history starts on a different day in that window, so I left them out instead of comparing unlike periods.

Fees are the only number that isn't luck

Conventional equity funds charged an average expense ratio of 3.77% this fiscal year. Shariah equity funds charged 4.33%. Money market funds charged about 0.83%.

Every return above is already after those fees. But think about what 4% a year means. Over three years it compounds to roughly 11.5% of your money, paid whether the fund beats the market or not. Past returns are mostly the market and partly luck. The fee is the one number you know before you invest, and the manager has to earn it back every single year.

How I'd use this

None of this is investment advice. It's how I read my own data.

Pick the category from when you need the money. Cash you need in a year belongs in a money market fund. Last year proved that equities can go nowhere for twelve months while cash funds quietly make 11%.

Inside money market, pick on fees. The returns are bunched so tightly that a one-point fee difference is most of the gap between first and last.

Inside equity, don't buy last year's winner. One fund out of five survived from the one-year list to the three-year list.

Check total return, not NAV. A fund that pays out looks flat or falling on a price chart while it pays you.

If you're choosing a fund this week, choose the category first and the fee second. Last year's league table comes a distant third.