Domestic mutual funds have purchased shares worth over Rs 1,600 crore in August, after pulling out more than Rs 2,400 crore in the preceding two months.
The funds bought shares worth about Rs 1,607 crore in the equity market during August following a net outflow of Rs 2,169 crore in July and another Rs 269 crore in June, according to the latest data available with market regulator SEBI.
After taking the latest inflows into account, MFs have sold shares to the tune of Rs 6,420 crore since the beginning of the year.
In comparison, foreign institutional investors made a net inflow of more than Rs 900 crore from equities in August, after withdrawing a net amount of over Rs 1,000 crore in the preceding month.
The mutual fund is an investment vehicle that is made up of a pool of funds collected from many investors for the purpose of investing in securities such as stocks, bonds, money market instruments and similar assets.
Also, MF investors put in Rs 3,752 crore in debt schemes after pulling out Rs 23,740 crore in such schemes in July.
Still, the debt market witnessed a net inflow of Rs 2.64 lakh crore in the first eight-month period of 2013.
According to market participants, overall, fund houses have been shifting focus from the equity to the debt scheme because of volatility in the secondary market and since the latter offers better returns compared to bank fixed deposits.
Another reason for investing in debt schemes could be the lower risk in it than equity funds.
Meanwhile, the BSE’s benchmark Sensex plunged 725 points or 3.75 per cent to settle at 18,619.72 points on August 30.
At the end of July, there were a total of 1,172 schemes under mutual funds, of which 739 schemes (63 per cent of the overall schemes) were debt-oriented, while 345 schemes (29 per cent of total schemes) were equity-related.