Mumbai: Mutual funds continued to trim their holdings in various blue-chip stocks in February as continued redemption pressures prompted money managers to offload liquid stocks.
Edelweiss Alternative Research said in a note that mutual funds sold Rs 2,800 crore worth of shares of Bharti Airtel, Rs 1,700 crore worth of HDFC Bank, Rs 1,500 crore worth of Reliance Industries and offloaded Rs 1,400 crore worth of HDFC shares.
Funds bought shares of NTPC and IndusInd Bank to the tune of Rs 700 crore each; while in L&T, they were buyers worth Rs 650 crore during the month, said Edelweiss.
“In the last few months, mutual funds are selling heavyweights because of net outflows in equity mutual fund schemes and heavyweights are easier to trim because of liquidity,” said Abhilash Pagaria, senior manager, Edelweiss Alternative Research.
“Although SIP flow is still positive, but retail investors are not coming in as big a way as earlier through the SIPs route and with markets at all-time highs they are booking profits in lump sum portfolio which is resulting in outflows from mutual funds.â€
Mutual funds say large MFs are underweight banking and overweight capital goods compared to weightages of these sectors in the NSE 200.
Within mid-caps stocks, mutual funds added SAIL, IRCTC, Jindal Steel; and in small-caps, they picked up shares of PVR and bought into the RailTel IPO.
