Foreign portfolio investors reduce stake in 2 out of 3 stocks in Dec qtr

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) pruned their shareholding in almost two out of three stocks from the top 200 universe during the recently-concluded December quarter, an analysis of data provided by Capital Line shows.

Of the 144 companies that have disclosed their shareholding pattern, 86 have seen a fall on a quarter-on-quarter basis, 56 have seen an increase, while two have seen no change in FPI stake. The average decline has been 20 basis points.

Pharmaceutical company Ipca Laboratories saw the highest decrease at 608 basis points (bps), followed by private sector lender IndusInd Bank (346 bps) and non-life insurer ICICI Lombard (318 bps).

On the other hand, realty firm Macrotech Developers (Lodha) saw the highest increase of 654 bps, followed by plastic processing company Supreme Industries (578 bps) and public sector lender Canara Bank (305 bps).

The markets saw a huge drawdown in FPI flows during the three months ended December 31 of $5.1 billion. If inflows into the primary markets are excluded, FPIs sold $10.8 billion worth of stocks on the exchanges. The sharp outflows were partially offset by strong inflows from domestic institutional investors (DIIs).

“As of December, both FPIs and DIIs were overweight (OW) energy, financials, real estate, and telecom, and underweight (UW) utilities. FPIs are overweight IT, discretionary and staples while DIIs are OW healthcare, industrials and materials,” observed BofA Securities in a note.