Start with the fund's mandate and category — this tells you what it's actually allowed to invest in (large cap, flexi cap, sectoral, etc.) and whether that matches what you thought you were buying. Next, check the expense ratio, since this is a guaranteed annual drag on your returns regardless of how the fund performs.
The portfolio holdings section shows the top 10 stocks or bonds and sector allocation — useful for checking concentration risk, especially if you hold multiple funds that might secretly overlap in their top holdings. Risk measures like standard deviation, beta, and Sharpe ratio tell you how volatile the fund has been relative to its category and how much return it's generated per unit of risk taken.
Finally, look at the fund manager's tenure and the fund's performance across multiple market cycles, not just the trailing 1-year return — a fund that's only existed during a bull run hasn't been tested yet. Ignore the flashy 'since inception' return figure on its own; it's the most easily manipulated number on the page since it depends entirely on when the fund happened to launch.