The Hindu Business Line : Selling by overseas investors intensifies

Mumbai, Nov. 17 FIIs have stepped up selling once again in the equity market, but the more worrying fact is that the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) too are not supporting the market and have turned net sellers in the past few sessions.

FIIs had turned net buyers in early November after the big fall in the market that took the Sensex below the 8,000-mark last month-end.

On Monday, FIIs were net sellers in equities worth Rs 521.16 crore while DIIs were net sellers by Rs 178 crore, the combined stock exchange’s data indicated.

“DIIs were supporting the market till now, but now they are feeling the redemption pressure as people are losing hope. I think fear is killing people, even we don’t know what is going to happen but I think we are pretty closer to the bottom,” said a broker.

Even in the previous trading session on Friday both FIIs and DIIs were net sellers in equities. On Friday, FIIs were net sellers in equities by Rs 564 crore, while DIIs were net sellers in equities by Rs 304 crore, according to SEBI data.

Though on Monday there were not many bulk deals reported by either, on Friday these institutional investors reported several bulk deals.

But the bulk deal reports put up by the BSE and NSE indicated heavy selling by noted FII Goldman Sachs on Friday, while the among the domestic mutual fund Sundaram BNP Paribas reported bulk sale in two company stocks.

Goldman Sachs sold shares worth Rs 67.5 crore in Adhunik Metalink, Esse Dee Aluminium, Freshtrop, Graphite Industries, Heg Ltd. Kei Industries, Man Industries and Venus Remedies.

Morgan Stanley too sold 80,473 shares of Maharashtra Scooters Ltd.

Another FII, Fidelity Funds Emerging Markets sold 1.9 million shares of HCL Infosystems at Rs 64.47 on Friday.

Among the domestic funds, Sundaram Bnp Paribas sold 1.6 crore shares of GVK Power and Infrastructure and 4.28 lakh shares of Universal Cable that day.

Rising registrations

However, they FII registrations with SEBI have been on the rise. As of November 17, FIIs main account stood at 1,562 while the sub-account at 4,795, rose from October-end figures of 1,541 and 4,751 respectively.

The corresponding figures at the end of 2007 were 1219 and 3644.