Blue-chips are fund managers' 'blue-eyed' scrips

Equity mutual fund managers, sitting on an all-time high cash level for quite some time now, cherry-picked stocks in April. The month witnessed liquidity continuously driving Indian shares up, as fund managers stuck to bigger names and pumped high amounts in selected stocks. Metal major Vedanta emerged as their top pick. The counter alone saw buying worth Rs 1,760 crore, one of the highest in recent months in a single stock. The merger of Cairn India with Vedanta acted as a buying trigger and fund managers lapped up 75 million shares in their portfolios. The next stocks which attracted fund managers include ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and HDFC from the finance sector. In automobiles, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors were among the most-bought counters. With shares trading above the long-term average valuations, giants of sectors were preferred. On the other hand, information technology stocks continued to remain in fund managers' selling zone. Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies were among the most liquidated. Interestingly, YES Bank, which generated huge interest among fund managers over the past few quarters too, was sold the most. According to fund managers, the risk-to-reward ratio at current levels may not be too promising. And, given the robust inflow of money from domestic investors, they are trying to bring more large-cap names to the core of their investment portfolio.