FIIs pull out Rs 680 cr from equity market last week

Overseas investors have pulled out more than Rs 680 crore from the Indian equity market last week amid political and economic worries.

The net outflow of Rs 681 crore during last week (April 8-12) comes after a net inflow of Rs 639 crore in the preceding week.

At gross level, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) purchased shares worth Rs 11,934 crore, while they sold equities amounting to Rs 12,615 crore resulting into a net outflow of Rs 681 crore, as per data available with the market regulator Sebi data.

As for the debt market, FIIs have withdrawn Rs 3,115 crore last week.

Market experts attributed the heavy outflow from the Indian equities to a slew of factors such as profit-booking, concerns over high current account deficit (CAD) and political uncertainty."FIIs have pulled out from equities because of factors such as profit-booking, CAD touching a record high and political uncertainty," Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd Head (Research) Alex Mathews said.

Overall, FIIs had pulled out Rs 42 crore from the stock market so far this month and seen a heavy outflow of Rs 3,744 crore from the debt market during the same period.

The money withdrawal by FIIs have dragged down BSE benchmark's Sensex by 208 points, or 1.12 %, last week to settle at 18,242.56 points.

Since the beginning of 2013, FIIs have invested Rs 55,580 crore ($ 10.3 billion) into the Indian equities. They invested $ 24.4 billion in 2012, about $ 5 billion below record purchases two years ago.

Moreover, overseas investors have pumped in Rs 8,999 crore into the debt market so far this year.

   
As on April 12, the number of registered FIIs in the country stood at 1,762 and total number of sub-accounts was 6,358.