How to use MF Terminal
the 5-minute, zero-jargon guide

If you can use WhatsApp, you can use this. Every screen explained, every number decoded, and step-by-step recipes for the things you actually want to do.

01Your first 3 clicks

From zero to your first useful insight in under a minute.

1

Create your free account. Go to mfterminal.in, click Open Terminal, and sign up with your email - it takes 10 seconds and unlocks the whole terminal. (Have an invite link with ?key=? That works too.)

2

Look at the map you land on. The 🧭 ROTATION MAP is the opening screen. Green zone (top-right) = where money is flowing right now. Grey/red zones = out of favour. That's the whole market in one glance - sectors, market caps, gold, silver, debt.

3

Click anything green. Say "Banks" is in the LEADING zone - click it. You'll jump to a list of the actual banking funds, strongest first. Click any fund's name for its full report page. That's it - you're using it.

The one habit that matters: on the left side of every screen there are one-click STRATEGY pills (Swing Setup, In Form, SIP Steady Hands…). Each one is a complete, pre-built filter. Pick the one that sounds like you, press it, done. You never have to touch the manual filters.

02The tabs, in plain English

Across the top of the main area. One sentence each - what it is, and when you'd use it.

🧭ROTATION MAP

The weather map. Twenty asset classes and sectors plotted by strength vs the market - leaders top-right, laggards bottom-left, updated weekly.

USE WHEN: "where should I even be looking?"

πŸ“ˆCHART

Any fund's price history as a real trading chart - candles, moving averages, RSI, drawdown view, rolling returns. Compare up to 6 funds.

USE WHEN: "show me what this fund actually did"

πŸ“‹SCREENER

The big sortable table of every fund that passes your current filters. Click any column header to sort. Star ⭐ funds to build a watchlist. Export to Excel.

USE WHEN: "give me a shortlist"

πŸƒTOP MOVERS

Top 10 funds over 1 month / 3 months / 6 months / 1 year, respecting your filters.

USE WHEN: "what's hot right now?"

πŸ—ΊRISK MAP

Every fund as a dot: up = higher returns, right = deeper crashes. The dream funds sit top-left - good returns, shallow falls.

USE WHEN: "is the return worth the risk?"

πŸ”₯ROTATION

A colour grid of every category's monthly returns for 30 months - watch leadership rotate between smallcap, banks, IT, gold…

USE WHEN: "what goes in and out of fashion?"

βš–οΈCOMPARE

Pick 2-6 funds (the οΌ‹ button anywhere) and get a 30-row head-to-head, overlap of their actual stock holdings, and a year-by-year duel.

USE WHEN: "A or B?"

πŸ§ͺSTRATEGY LAB

The backtester. Turn any screen into a rule ("buy the 5 strongest funds each month") and test it over 8 years - honestly. More below.

USE WHEN: "would this idea have actually worked?"

🩺PORTFOLIO ✚

Upload your CAS statement (the PDF every investor can download free) and see your whole real portfolio graded - including the return you actually earned vs what your funds delivered.

USE WHEN: "how is MY portfolio doing, really?"

03The numbers, decoded

Every important number, one plain-English line, and what "good" looks like.

RS RATING (1-99)

The fund's class rank for recent performance, against funds of its own type. 99 = top of the class right now. It's the number stock traders use - nobody else computes it for mutual funds.

Good: 80+. Leading: 90+.

MKT RS (1-99)

Same rank, but against EVERY fund in the market, not just its own category. A debt fund can be RS 99 among debt funds but MKT RS 45 overall.

Good: 80+ means beating almost everything.

KING SCORE (0-100)

The long-term report card: returns + consistency + crash behaviour + risk-adjusted quality, all vs category peers. Click any score to see exactly how it's built - no black box.

Good: 70+. Excellent: 85+.

CAGR

Average yearly growth rate. "15% CAGR for 5 years" means β‚Ή1L became β‰ˆ β‚Ή2L. It smooths the bumpy ride into one number - the bumps are what drawdown measures.

Context: Nifty has done ~12-13%/yr long-term.

MAX DRAWDOWN

The worst peak-to-bottom fall, ever. βˆ’40% means at some point investors watched 40% of their money vanish before recovery. This is the stomach test - most people quit at the bottom.

Equity funds: βˆ’25 to βˆ’60% is normal. Know yours.

ROLLING RETURNS

Instead of one lucky start date, we test every possible start date and show the median and worst. "Roll 3Y median 16%, worst 2%" = a typical 3-year investor made 16%/yr, the unluckiest still made 2%.

Good: high median AND a worst you could live with.

XIRR

YOUR personal return, counting when you actually put money in. A fund can show 15% while you earned 8% because you bought after the rally - that gap is timing, and the Portfolio Doctor shows it.

Compare it to the fund's own CAGR.

EXIT LOAD

A ~1% fee most active equity funds charge if you sell within 365 days. Sell β‚Ή1L in month 6 β†’ β‚Ή1,000 gone. The Strategy Lab deducts these when the toggle is on - and says so on a badge.

Index funds & liquid funds usually charge none.

SHARPE

Return per unit of drama. Two funds both did 14% - the one that got there with fewer wild swings has the higher Sharpe.

Good: above 0.8 (3-year, for equity).

BULL / BEAR RETURNS

How the fund behaves when the market is rising vs falling (Nifty above/below its 200-day average). Some funds are heroes in bulls and disasters in bears - see it before you own it.

Look for: smaller bear losses than peers.

04Recipes - exactly what to click

Pick your situation, follow the numbers.

πŸ” "Find me a strong fund to invest in"

1

Click the EQUITY tab at the very top.

2

In the left rail, press the In form ⚑ pill. That's proven quality (King Score 75+) that is ALSO leading right now (RS 90+).

3

Open the SCREENER tab. The list is already sorted by strength. Look at maybe the top 10.

4

Click a fund's name. On its page check three things: King Score 70+, BEAR number not terrible vs its peers, and ROLL 3Y WORST - could you live with that as your unlucky case?

5

Check the BUY βœ“ column - some hot funds have suspended new investments. βœ“ means you can actually buy it today.

πŸ•΅οΈ "Someone recommended a fund - is it actually good?"

1

Type its name in the search box (top right). Click the result - its full page opens.

2

Read THE BRIEF at the top - plain-English strengths and warnings, generated from its own numbers.

3

Check King Score (is it actually good, or just recently lucky?), RS (is it in form now?), and expense ratio (is it a Regular plan quietly charging you ~1% extra per year? The Direct version of the same fund is cheaper).

4

Still interested? Press οΌ‹ on it and on a fund you already like, then open COMPARE - the winner on each row is highlighted. If they overlap 60%+ in holdings, you'd just be buying the same thing twice.

πŸ§ͺ "Test an idea before trusting it"

1

Open the πŸ§ͺ STRATEGY LAB tab.

2

Don't touch anything yet - just press RUN BACKTEST. The default rule ("each month, hold the 5 strongest funds") runs from 5 different start dates over 8 years.

3

Read the verdict sentence first. It's written in plain English and tells you the honest range, the costs, and the caveats.

4

Now change ONE thing at a time - the rebalance speed, the number of funds, a rule - and run again. Watch what it does to the range, the max drawdown, and the LOAD PAID chip.

5

Happy with a rule? Press β˜… TODAY'S PICKS - it shows exactly what that rule would buy at today's prices, with each pick's exit-load and buyability status.

🩺 "Health-check the portfolio I already have"

1

Get your CAS (a free official statement of everything you hold): go to camsonline.com β†’ Statements β†’ CAS, choose DETAILED, and it arrives by email as a PDF. The password is usually your PAN in capitals.

2

Open PORTFOLIO ✚, choose the PDF, type the password, press Diagnose. (An Excel/CSV with fund names + units works too.)

3

Read the diagnostics: concentration warnings, expensive Regular plans, laggards, overlap ("you own HDFC Bank through 6 different funds"), and the behaviour gap - what your timing cost you vs just staying put.

4

Nothing is uploaded permanently - it's parsed in memory and discarded. Nothing is stored.

05How to read a backtest without fooling yourself

Every backtest here shows a range, not one number - the same rule run from 5 different start dates. Here's how to judge what you see:

WHAT YOU SEEWHAT IT MEANS
Narrow range (e.g. 14-17%)The result doesn't depend on lucky timing. Trustworthy.
Wide range (e.g. 4-19%)Start-date luck. The strategy is fragile - treat the low end as the truth.
RETURNS ARE PRE-TAX badgeCapital-gains tax is NOT deducted - that depends on your personal tax situation. Plan for it.
EXIT LOADS DEDUCTED βœ“The 1% early-exit fees ARE subtracted. If it says NOT DEDUCTED βœ—, real returns would be lower.
MAX DD βˆ’35%At some point you'd have been down 35%. Would you have stayed in? Be honest.
"Bull-dominated window" warningThe test period was mostly rising markets - the strategy's crash behaviour is largely untested.
LOAD PAID β‚Ή65,000Fees this strategy paid per β‚Ή1 lakh invested. Fast-switching strategies bleed here - the Hold Band setting reduces it.
The golden rule: a backtest is evidence about the past, not a promise about the future. We make the evidence honest; the decision stays yours.

06The five classic mistakes (this tool exists to stop)

1

Buying last month's #1. One hot month is noise. Check RS (sustained strength) and King Score (long-term quality) together - the In Form pill does exactly this.

2

Ignoring drawdown. Everyone's a long-term investor until they're down 45%. Look at MAX DD and the BEAR column before the CAGR.

3

Owning 12 funds that are secretly the same fund. Use COMPARE β†’ overlap. Above 50% overlap = you're paying two fees for one portfolio.

4

Believing a single backtest. Anyone can find one start date that makes any idea look brilliant. Demand the range. (Here, you can't avoid it.)

5

Paying Regular-plan fees. The same fund in "Direct" form charges ~0.5-1% less EVERY year. The Portfolio Doctor flags every Regular plan you hold.

07FAQ

Is this investment advice?

No. MF Terminal is a research and education tool. It computes, ranks and backtests - it never tells you what to buy. Decisions (and taxes) are yours; for advice, see a SEBI-registered adviser.

Are the returns shown after tax? After fees?

All returns are pre-tax - capital-gains tax depends on your personal slab and exemptions, so we leave it to you, and we say so on a badge everywhere. Exit loads (the fund's own early-exit fee) ARE deducted in backtests when the toggle is on - the badge tells you which. Fund NAVs themselves are always net of the fund's expense ratio.

Where does the data come from and how fresh is it?

Daily NAVs from AMFI (the official industry body) back to 2006, refreshed every night. Benchmarks from NSE indices, buyability from BSE StAR, holdings from monthly fund disclosures. The header shows the exact NAV date - if data is ever stale, it turns red and says so.

Why is it invite-only?

It's in beta. The landing page and top-10 lists are open to everyone; the full terminal needs an invite code. Request one here.

Is my portfolio (CAS) stored when I upload it?

No. It's parsed in memory, analysed, and discarded. Nothing is written to disk, logged, or sent anywhere.

What do RS 99 or King Score 90 actually guarantee?

Nothing - they describe the past precisely, not the future. High RS says "leading now"; high King Score says "has been excellent for years". History says leaders tend to stay leaders for a while - but "tends to" is not "will".

I clicked my invite link but see "version mismatch" or a blank screen.

Hard-refresh once: Ctrl+F5 (or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac). The server updates often and your browser may have cached an old page.

Open the Terminal and try it β†’