Holding of retail investors in companies listed on National Stock Exchange reached an all-time high of 7.18 per cent as on June 30, from 6.96 as on March 31, as per primeinfobase.com.

Retail investor refers to individuals with up to ₹2 lakh shareholding. The portal also said that in rupee value terms retail holding in companies listed on NSE reached an all-time high of ₹16.18 lakh crore, from ₹13.94 lakh crore. This shows an increase of 16 per cent during a three-month period. It may be noted that BSE Sensex went up by a little over 6 per cent and NSE Nifty rose by a little over 7 per cent during the period under discussion.

On a high: Retail players dominate capital market trading on NSE

“A buoyant secondary market and a flurry of new listings have helped in channelising retail savings into the capital market,” Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, PRIME Database Group said.

Holding of High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs) (individuals with more than ₹2 lakh shareholding), in companies listed on NSE also increased to 2.10 per cent as on June 30, from 1.98 percent on March 31, taking the combined retail and HNI holding to an all-time high of 9.28 per cent. Holding of domestic mutual funds in companies listed on NSE, however, reduced marginally to 7.25 per cent from 7.26 per cent.

Investor preference

According to Haldea, holding of mutual funds has now declined for five consecutive quarters, after 24 quarters of continuous rise (from 2.80 per cent as on March 31, 2014, to 7.96 per cent as on March 31, 2020). The holding has fallen despite net inflows by domestic mutual funds of ₹12,069 crore during the quarter. In value terms, though, the holding of domestic mutual funds went up by 12.30 per cent to an all-time high of ₹16.33 lakh crore as on June 30, 2021, from ₹14.54 lakh crore on March 31, 2021. “These trends also show the willingness and preference of individual investors to invest directly, rather than indirectly via mutual funds,” Haldea said.

Why the current crop of retail investors are different

Holding of insurance companies as a whole also declined to a 5-year low of 4.89 per cent as on June 30, down from 5.06 per cent as on March 31. In value terms, it went up by 8.77 per cent from the previous quarter to an all-time high of ₹11.03 lakh crore. On the back of decrease in holdings of mutual funds and insurance companies, holding of domestic institutional investors (DII), which includes domestic mutual funds, insurance companies, banks, financial institutions, pension funds etc., as a whole, also decreased to 11 quarters’ low of 13.19 per cent as on June 30 from 13.42 per cent as on March 31, despite net inflows from DIIs of ₹20,199 crore during the quarter.

Holding of Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) also declined to 21.66 per cent from 22.46 per cent. With this total institutional ownership viz. FPI and DII also declined to 34.85 per cent in quarter ending June 30, down from 35.88 in quarter ending March 31.

Top 10 companies with highest retail holding

(In value term/As on June 30, 2021

Source: primeinfobase.com

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