Under SEBI's standardized performance disclosure norms, which standard benchmark indices must be disclosed alongside the scheme benchmark for: (1) Equity Schemes, (2) Debt Schemes with maturity up to 1 year / Arbitrage Funds, and (3) Debt Schemes with maturity over 1 year / Conservative Hybrid Funds?

[ A ](1) Gold spot price, (2) US S&P 500, (3) London Brent Crude Index

[ B ](1) Bank fixed deposit rate, (2) Call money rate, (3) Public Provident Fund rate

[ C ](1) Inflation rate, (2) Real GDP growth rate, (3) Sensex Dividend Yield

[ D ](1) Sensex or Nifty, (2) 1-year T-Bill, (3) 10-year dated GoI security[ CORRECT ]

Takeaway

Option D is correct: (1) Sensex or Nifty, (2) 1-year T-Bill, (3) 10-year dated GoI security

Derivation

To enable seamless standardization across all AMCs, SEBI mandates disclosing returns of standard baseline benchmarks alongside scheme-specific benchmarks: (1) Equity schemes: Sensex or Nifty 50, (2) Debt schemes with duration/maturity up to 1 year and Arbitrage funds: 1-year Treasury Bill (T-Bill), and (3) Debt schemes with duration over 1 year, Conservative Hybrid funds, and Equity Savings funds: 10-year dated Government of India (GoI) security. These standard benchmarks must appear in all offer documents and advertisements. This tests standard benchmark rules. The common error is confusing standard indices with macroeconomic rates.

Why the others fail

A — (1) Gold spot price, (2) US S&P 500, (3) London Brent Crude Index

Commodity spot prices and overseas indices like S&P 500 do not serve as standard statutory benchmarks for domestic Indian schemes.

B — (1) Bank fixed deposit rate, (2) Call money rate, (3) Public Provident Fund rate

Bank fixed deposits and PPF rates are retail banking deposit rates and are not recognized as standard market index benchmarks.

C — (1) Inflation rate, (2) Real GDP growth rate, (3) Sensex Dividend Yield

Macroeconomic statistics (GDP growth, CPI inflation) are economic indicators, not tradeable financial market index benchmarks.