The positions a long-short fund can take with futures and options, how each one shows up in a monthly portfolio statement, the events that move them, and what the strategies were actually holding in their latest disclosed portfolios.
Educational. Portfolio data from each fund house’s statement; 33 strategies at 30 Sep 2026 and 1 at 31 Aug 2026.
A mutual fund may use derivatives to hedge and to rebalance. A SIF may also hold unhedged short positions of up to 25% of its net assets, through exchange-traded derivatives. Total exposure across cash, derivatives and repo cannot exceed 100% of net assets, so SIFs cannot borrow to add leverage. Each strategy’s offer document sets what it may do within those limits. All the exposure limits →
Every line of every strategy’s latest portfolio statement, read the same way for all fund houses.
| Strategy type | Strategies | Any derivatives | Stock futures | Options | Index futures | Swaps or commodity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hybrid Long-Short | 11 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| Equity Long-Short | 12 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 4 | 0 |
| Equity Ex-Top 100 Long-Short | 7 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Active Asset Allocator Long-Short | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Sector Rotation Long-Short | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Altiva Equity Ex-Top 100 LS and Summit Equity Long-Short Fund showed no derivative positions in their statements. Fund houses print derivatives differently. Futures appear at their full exposure and options at their market value (the premium), which understates the exposure an option carries. A future can be part of an arbitrage, a hedge or an outright short, and a statement does not always say which, so this page shows which instruments each strategy holds, not how much of it is a bet against the market. Every line is on each fund’s own page, as the fund house printed it.
| Strategy | Type | Stock futures | Options | Index futures | Swaps or commodity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altiva Hybrid Long-ShortEdelweiss | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| Apex Hybrid Long-ShortAditya Birla SL | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Arudha Hybrid Long-ShortBandhan | Hybrid | ✓ | – | – | ✓ |
| Infinity Hybrid Long-ShortKotak Mahindra | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Magnum Hybrid Long-ShortSBI | Hybrid | – | ✓ | – | – |
| Platinum Hybrid Long-ShortMirae Asset | Hybrid | ✓ | – | ✓ | – |
| Prism Hybrid Long-Short FundJio BlackRock | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| RedHex Hybrid Long-ShortHSBC | Hybrid | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Titanium Hybrid Long-ShortTata | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| iSIF Hybrid Long-ShortICICI Prudential | Hybrid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| qSIF Hybrid Long-ShortQuant | Hybrid | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Altiva Equity Long-ShortEdelweiss | Equity | – | – | ✓ | – |
| Apex Equity Long-ShortAditya Birla SL | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Arthaya Equity Long-ShortUnion | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Arudha Equity Long-ShortBandhan | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Diviniti Equity Long-ShortITI | Equity | ✓ | – | ✓ | – |
| DynaSIF Equity Long-Short360 ONE | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| Sapphire Equity Long-ShortFranklin Templeton | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| Summit Equity Long-Short FundInvesco | Equity | – | – | – | – |
| Titanium Equity Long-ShortTata | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| WSIF Equity Long-ShortThe Wealth Company | Equity | ✓ | – | – | – |
| iSIF Equity Long-ShortICICI Prudential | Equity | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| qSIF Equity Long-ShortQuant | Equity | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Altiva Equity Ex-Top 100 LSEdelweiss | Equity Ex-Top 100 | – | – | – | – |
| Apex Equity Ex-Top 100 LSAditya Birla SL | Equity Ex-Top 100 | ✓ | ✓ | – | – |
| DynaSIF Equity Ex-Top 100 LS360 ONE | Equity Ex-Top 100 | ✓ | – | – | – |
| Magnum Equity Ex-Top 100 LSSBI | Equity Ex-Top 100 | ✓ | – | ✓ | – |
| WSIF Equity Ex-Top 100The Wealth Company | Equity Ex-Top 100 | ✓ | – | – | – |
| iSIF Equity Ex-Top 100 LSICICI Prudential | Equity Ex-Top 100 | – | ✓ | – | – |
| qSIF Equity Ex-Top 100Quant | Equity Ex-Top 100 | ✓ | – | – | – |
| DynaSIF Active Asset Allocator360 ONE | Active Asset Allocator | ✓ | ✓ | – | ✓ |
| iSIF Active Asset AllocatorICICI Prudential | Active Asset Allocator | ✓ | ✓ | – | ✓ |
| qSIF Active Asset AllocatorQuant | Active Asset Allocator | ✓ | – | – | – |
| qSIF Sector Rotation Long-ShortQuant | Sector Rotation | ✓ | – | – | – |
The positions a long-short manager can build, what each is for, and how to recognise it in a portfolio statement. Describing a position is not a statement that any particular strategy uses it; the table above shows what each one actually held.
Sell Nifty or Bank Nifty futures against the stocks held, to cut market exposure without selling the stocks.
In a portfolio statement: An index future shown as sold.
Buy a put option on the index or on a stock held. It limits the loss below a chosen level, for the price of the premium.
In a portfolio statement: A put option bought.
Hold the stock, buy a put and sell a call. The call premium pays for the protection, in exchange for giving up gains above the call's strike.
In a portfolio statement: A put bought and a call sold on the same holding.
Buy a stock and sell its future at the same time, and earn the gap between the two prices as it closes by expiry. It carries almost no market view, and hybrid long-short strategies use it widely.
In a portfolio statement: The same company held in the portfolio and its future sold.
Sell a call option on a stock already held. The premium is income; the trade-off is giving up the gain above the call's strike.
In a portfolio statement: A call sold on a stock that is also held.
Sell the future of a stock expected to fall, without owning it. This outright short is what SEBI caps for SIFs: unhedged short exposure of up to 25% of net assets.
In a portfolio statement: A stock future sold, with no holding of that stock.
Buy one stock and short a related one, to profit from how they move against each other rather than from the market's direction.
In a portfolio statement: A holding in one company and a future sold in a close peer.
Buy a call and sell a higher-strike call. A cheaper way to position for a moderate rise; both the cost and the gain are capped.
In a portfolio statement: Two calls on the same underlying, one bought and one sold.
Buy a put and sell a lower-strike put. A cheaper way to position for a fall; both the cost and the gain are capped.
In a portfolio statement: Two puts on the same underlying, one bought and one sold.
Sell an option and buy a further-out one as protection, to collect premium when the market holds above (or below) a level. The most that can be made is the premium; the loss is capped by the option bought.
In a portfolio statement: Options sold and bought on the same underlying.
The same strike in two expiries, one bought and one sold, to position for differences in time decay and volatility.
In a portfolio statement: Options or futures on one underlying in two different expiries.
Combinations such as straddles and strangles that gain or lose with how much the market moves rather than which way.
In a portfolio statement: Calls and puts on the same index, both bought or both sold.
Positions that sell options can lose more than the premium they collect, unless an option bought caps the loss. Whether, and how far, a SIF strategy may sell options is set by SEBI’s derivatives rules for funds and by its own offer document.
The kinds of events that typically change how much a long-short book is hedged, which stocks are worth shorting, and what arbitrage pays.
Changes which stocks are worth holding, hedging or shorting.
Changes how much market exposure a manager wants to keep.
Moves the whole market at once, which is when index hedges matter most.
Sets what hedges cost and what arbitrage pays.
Equity and interest-rate derivatives are part of the NISM Series V-D syllabus, the certification for distributing SIFs. Practise with free V-D mock tests → or see the SIF desk for distributors.
This page is for education. It is not investment advice, research or a recommendation, and it does not rank funds or say that any strategy suits you. Derivatives can magnify both gains and losses. Specialized Investment Funds are subject to market risks; read all scheme-related documents carefully. Trustner Asset Services Pvt. Ltd., AMFI-registered Mutual Fund & SIF Distributor, ARN-286886, CIN U66301AS2023PTC025505.