FPIs take a shine to health care and IT services companies in Q2

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), the biggest non-promoter shareholders in the Indian stock market, increased their allocation in health care and information technology (IT) services companies in the quarter ended September, while reducing holdings in banks. An analysis of Capitaline data for 492 companies from the BSE 500 universe that have disclosed their shareholding pattern for the quarter shows FPIs raised their stake in 175 companies and decreased their holding in 251 companies on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

Their holding has risen by more than 1 per cent in 60 entities. These include several pharma and healthcare firms such as Narayana Hrudayalaya (10.3 percentage point increase), Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (4 percentage points), Aurobindo Pharma (1.3 percentage points), Dr Lal Pathlabs and Cipla (1.1 percentage point each).  

Among IT stocks, Zensar Technologies (9.7 percentage points), HCL Technologies (1.8 percentage points) and L&T Infotech (1.6 percentage points) saw their holding rise the most in percentage terms.

.

In terms of value, Reliance Industries saw the highest increase in FPI investment, of Rs426.5 billion, followed by TCS (Rs142.3 billion) and Axis Bank (Rs126.9 billion).

Several banking stocks saw a slip in their holding in both value and percentage terms. Prominent among these are YES Bank (300 basis points (bps) decline) and HDFC Bank (180 bps). In value terms, FPI holding in these stocks slipped by Rs1.65 billion and Rs1.13 billion, respectively.