Playing the stock market game comes easy to fund mangers, given their experience and professional background. Would you then not like to know stocks that they bought and sold last month in large numbers?
To give some broad insights, there are 43 mutual funds (MFs) in India and their combined assets under management (AUMs) stood at Rs 17.89 lakh crore, up Rs 52,000 crore from Rs 17.37 lakh crore at the end of January.
Net inflows into ELSS slowed down to Rs 997 crore from Rs 1,166 crore in the previous month while inflows into equity schemes rose to Rs 5,465 crore from Rs 3,717 crore in January 2017.
Some of the top-ranking MFs in India include ICICI MF, HDFC MF, Reliance MF, Birla Sun Life MF, Axis MF and SBI MF.
IDBI Capital Markets & Securities analyses how MFs shuffled their portfolios in February.
Top picks
Topping the list of stocks that MFs added to their portfolios in February is private sector lender ICICI Bank; fund managers bought 77.9 crore shares. The stock has been rallying over the past few trading sessions as well and was the top gainer on Tuesday (March 14), ending 5.99 percent higher at Rs 287 on the BSE.
Other top stocks that MFs added to their kitty during the month include Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), Infosys, ITC, Tata Steel, Federal Bank, TCS, RBL Bank, Sun Pharma and Maruti Suzuki.
Fund managers bought 9 crore shares of RIL, riding on the bullish projections for its telecom arm, Reliance Jio's aggressive 4G plans.
Cigarette maker and diversified player ITC was another favourite of MFs, who bought 43.1 crore shares while 18.2 crore shares of IT services company Infosys were added to the MF kitty during the month.
Kerala-based private sector lender Federal Bank was a significant buy during the month, with 44.7 crore shares bought.
Sun Pharma was another top pick for MFs that added 12.4 crore shares. The stock rose 3.61 percent on Tuesday to close at Rs 708 on news that the US FDA has imported restrictions placed on its Mohali facility.
Top exits
The portfolio churn saw MFs exiting from some of the blue-chip scrips such as HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, BPCL, Coal India, Bajaj Auto and Larsen & Toubro.
MFs sold 25 crore shares of HDFC Bank. The private sector lender's share price spurted to a new 52-week high of Rs 1,450 on February 16 after the RBI lifted the cap on buying by foreign institutional investors. On Tuesday (March 14), it closed at Rs 1,410.
Other prominent exits for MFs during the month included Kotak Mahindra Bank, Grasim Industries, Tata Motors, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Tech Mahindra and Cadila Healthcare.
Sensex, Nifty closer higher on Tuesday
On Tuesday, the BSE Sensex closed 496 points higher at 29,442 while the NSE Nifty ended 137 points higher at 9,072 in response to the BJP putting up a good performance in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and managing to outsmart the Congress in Manipur and Goa despite finishing second.
The BSE Sensex is just 582 points away from its all-time high of 30,024.
Gold, silver edge lower
Gold prices drifted Rs 150 lower to close at Rs 28,900 per 10 gm while silver ended Rs 180 lower at Rs 40,800 per kg.
