The Hindu Business Line : Foreign investors switch to buy mode

The key to the market movement is the behaviour of the FIIs, said analysts. They have pulled out more than $12 billion from Indian equity market this year. So does this change in their behaviour indicate a trend?

Marketmen say that this is a temporary phenomenon as the FIIs are covering their short positions as the regulator, the Securities and Exchanges Board of India, disapproved of short-sales and have directed the foreign institutional investors not to take any more fresh positions in overseas markets.

According to market sources, FIIs have lent close to Rs 5,000 crore in the overseas market.

Short selling

Although short selling in the overseas is not banned, SEBI has now derecognised this activity to support the stock market and to improve the domestic Securities Lending and Borrowing (SLB) mechanism, which is very important for short selling locally.

“In the past two days the FIIs have been net buyers as they are squaring off their short positions. There hasn’t been any fresh buying that has happened,” said Mr Prashant Bhansali, Director, Mehta Equities.

The retail participants, especially, are influenced by the behaviour of the FIIs and had pushed the panic button seeing the relentless selling by foreign investors.

“The fall in the market was purely because of FII selling,” said Mr P.K. Agarwal, President-Research, Bonanza Portfolio.

There is a positive sentiment in the market at the moment as the regulators are trying to bring back the confidence of the investors by taking various measures, he added.

“The FIIs will continue to buy till they square off their short positions,” added the President-Research of Bonanza Portfolio.

SEBI data

According to data available on the SEBI Web site, as on October 9, FIIs had lent 1.27 crore shares of ICICI Bank (which is the highest amount lent of any scrip on that day), followed by 89 lakh shares of NTPC and 88 lakh shares of Tata Steel. They had lent around 224 scrips on that day.