Sometimes, less is more. I believe this is true when one is selecting equity mutual funds to achieve their long term financial goals. A person does not require more than three equity mutual funds at any particular point in their life, in my opinion, to achieve their goals. This could be in any combination of funds across market capitalisation, across sectors or across geographies. But, there are hundreds of schemes to choose from! It thus becomes an extremely confusing task for the investor or even an adviser to sift through all these schemes and choose the right ones.