The Hindu Business Line : Overseas investors pump in $4.3 b into equity markets in Oct

Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Oct 13, 2007 ePaper

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Home Page - Foreign Institutional Investors
Markets - Stock Markets
Overseas investors pump in $4.3 b into equity markets in Oct

Other categories remain net sellers

K.S. Badri Narayanan

Chennai, Oct. 12 Foreign institutional investors have pumped in $4.3 billion or Rs 17,535.7 crore so far in October (as of October 11, the latest data available with the Securities and Exchange Board of India) into the Indian equity markets.

After pumping in about Rs 24,000 crore or $5.8 billion during July, the FIIs turned bearish in August as they were net sellers to the tune of Rs 7,750 crore, and remained neutral in September. The US Fed rate cut announcement on September 18 turned the tide as India and other emerging markets started receiving foreign funds on the back of renewed yen carry trade.

Benchmarks surge

During the period, the BSE Sensex gained 6.12 per cent and NSE’s S&P CNX Nifty by 7.49 per cent. NSE’s CNX Midcap moved up by 2.45 per cent while the BSE-100 recorded a gain of 5.86 per cent.

However, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and mutual funds remained net sellers in October. According to BSE data, DIIs – a category comprising banks, domestic financial institutions, insurance companies and mutual funds — sold about Rs 3,806 crore, of which MFs alone accounted for Rs 2,195 crore (as per SEBI data).

Retail investors, categorised as clients by the exchanges, were also on the sell side. They sold Rs 1,908 crore so far in October, according to the data available with the exchanges.

Not a single day in October witnessed net outflow from FIIs, but interestingly, the trend was quite opposite for mutual funds. The latter were never net buyer on any day in October so far.

F&O scene

In the F&O sector, the FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 1,021.61 crore. However, their open interest positions moved up; they now hold Rs 18,854 crore of index futures and Rs 35,758 crore of stock futures while index options accounted for Rs 14,768 crore.

According to market participants, the fund flow hereafter will depend on financial performance of the corporates for the previous quarter. Though the Infosys number did not have any positive surprise, analysts and brokerages expect other sectors, particularly engineering and capital goods, to report better performance. Besides, global cues especially from the US could trigger fund flow, say marketmen.