FII investment touches $2 bn-mark

Investment by Foreign institutional investors (FII) in Indian equities has touched the $2 billion-mark (nearly Rs 10,000 crore) so far this year, which includes a record single day net purchase of Rs 4,085 crore. 

According to the latest available data on Sebi website, FIIs made net purchases worth $2 billion or about Rs 9,973 crore so far in 2009, with the stock market seeing major investments in the past two weeks.     

"FIIs have been in the buying mode for the last couple of months and after their initial sell-off in early 2009, have turned net buyers of Indian equities year-to-date. Positive trend is likely to continue well into FY10," Angel Broking Head of Research Hitesh Agrawal said.     

On Wednesday, FIIs put in as much as Rs 4,085 crore ($838 million) in a single day with an over Rs 2,000 crore investment in shares of realty firms DLF alone.

Since the beginning of the new fiscal year, FIIs have started putting money in domestic stocks, including blue-chips like Housing Development Finance Corporation, private sector lender HDFC Bank and realty major DLF.      

In May alone, FIIs made gross purchases of equities worth Rs 27,872 crore and sold shares of Rs 18,255 crore, resulting in a net investment of Rs 9,616 crore ($1.93 billion), as per the data available with Sebi.