Retail investor holding of NSE-listed companies has hit the highest levels in the last six years at 21.35 per cent as on March 31, 2015. According to Prime Database, which analysed shareholding patterns of 1,467 companies among the 1,471 companies listed on the NSE, the value of the stake held by retail investors was ₹7.94 lakh crore. FIIs holding in the NSE-listed companies was worth ₹19.32 lakh crore and the value of shares held by DIIs was ₹10.20 lakh crore.

According to Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, Prime Database, “The value of retail holdings recorded a handsome increase, reaching the highest level at ₹7.94 lakh crore, up 50 per cent from a year back, courtesy the buoyant markets.

“The continuing overwhelming presence of retail investors in smaller companies, from which institutional investors typically stay away, is very significant to note.”

Slow but steady

The retail investor share of Nifty companies was 7.31 per cent, rising marginally to 8.19 per cent in case of top 100 NSE-listed companies.

The top five companies with the highest retail holding in percentage terms as on March 31, 2015, were ATN International (85.54 per cent), Raj Oil Mills (77.76), Som Distilleries (76.51), Zenith Birla (76.10), and MIC Electronics (75.86).

SQS India BFSI, Sita Shree Food Products, IVRCL, PSL and Arshiya were the top five losers of retail investor holdings as at March end.

Overall, retail holdings went up in 712 NSE-listed companies with an average increase in stock price at 50 per cent, while holding went down in 718 companies with an average increase in stock price at a much higher 97 per cent.

Proves dictum?

According to Haldea, this validates the oft-used phrase that retail investors buy at the peak and sell at lows.

Assets under management of retail investors have also gone up by 53 per cent from ₹1.17 lakh crore in April 2014 to ₹1.79 lakh crore in March.

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