Can mid-cap MFs help you accumulate enough for your retirement?

Mid-cap stocks were not doing great for a while but in the past one month, they have begun to recover a bit. So many people have raised the query whether it's a right time to invest in mid-cap mutual funds or they must wait for the mid-cap mutual funds to show further recovery? It is very important to understand that while investing for financial goals like retirement which is your need, one must not try to time the market instead invest at the current situation via the SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) route which would give you the advantage of rupee cost averaging irrespective of the market situation.
 
If we look at the average returns provided by the mid-cap mutual funds in the past three-year, five-year and 10-year then they are 9.28 per cent, 18.72 per cent and 20.78 per cent, respectively. Now the question is whether these returns would help in achieving your retirement corpus. If we assume your retirement is more than 10 years away, then, yes, you can achieve your retirement corpus with these returns, even if we assume inflation at 10 to 12 per cent.
 
But these returns are based on past performance and does not show future performance. So it is prudent to first assess your risk profile which would technically show how much risk you can take and how much risk you must take. Based on these inputs you need to arrive at an ideal portfolio which would suit your requirements. Also, you need to calculate the corpus that you would need when you retire.