While investing in debt funds, yield-to-maturity (YTM) is a parameter to consider. YTM in a bond is the return that you get if you hold the bond till its maturity. In the case of a debt fund, it is a weighted average yield of all the bonds that the scheme holds. In practice, YTMs and actual returns do not match in open-ended debt funds as the portfolio of these funds are churned frequently mainly due to cashflows and, rating and interest rate changes. Instead of looking at the past return, YTM provides you effective insights on returns especially in accrual funds during the rising and high interest rate scenarios.