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Large cap, mid-cap and small caps that MFs traded in June 2022

  • India Infoline News Service
  • 13 Jul , 2022
  • 11:38 AM
While large caps provide beta and stability to the portfolio, it is the mid-caps and the small caps that are the source of alpha; or excess returns above the market. Mutual funds come in a whole range including diversified funds, multi-cap funds, mid cap funds, small cap funds etc and the buying and selling logic differs for each of them.

June 2022 was a month of robust flows into equity funds, although debt fund flows were in the negative due to quarter-end treasury considerations. SIPs are now stabilizing at above Rs12,000 crore per month, despite the challenging market conditions. Amidst heavy FPI selling, domestic mutual funds provided the much-needed support to the stock markets.

That has been possible due to the persistent flows into equity funds. It is now time to look beyond macro flows at what mutual funds actually bought and sold across large caps, mid-caps and small caps. The focus is on specific stocks that mutual funds bought and sold across various capitalization categories in June 2022. Such portfolio shift information gives insights into mid-cap and small cap preferences of domestic mutual funds.

Large cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in June 2022

What do we mean by large caps. For our reference, large caps adhere to the traditional AMFI definition based on market cap rankings. Here is how. The universe of listed stocks on NSE and BSE are ranked descending on market cap. The top-100 stocks by market cap are defined as large cap stocks and reviewed every 6 months. Here are the major large cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in June 2022.

Let us focus on the large cap buying. Overall, the mutual funds added 177 lakh shares of Vedanta, 118 lakh shares of Tech Mahindra, 103 lakh shares of ICICI Lombard General Insurance, 45 lakh shares of Grasim Industries, 42 lakh shares of Havells, 41 lakh shares of Godrej Consumer Products, 33 lakh shares of Marico and 22 lakh shares of Interglobe Aviation (Indigo Airways). Mutual funds also added smaller quantities of Piramal Enterprises and IRCTC. Some sectors like metals and IT had corrected sharply and mutual funds did bottom fishing. However, the predominance of FMCG plays in the top buys indicates that mutual funds are also playing the defensive game.

We now turn to key large cap selling by mutual funds. Mutual funds normally use corrections to churn their portfolios in favour of non-cyclicals. A total of 184 lakh shares of Ambuja Cements were sold, in the light of the recent acquisition. In addition, 154 lakh shares of Zomato, 105 lakh shares of Tata Steel, 45 lakh shares of DLF Ltd, 39 lakh shares of LIC and 22 lakh shares of Hindustan Aeronautics were sold in June 2022. Mutual funds also sold smaller quantities of Macrotech, L&T Infotech, Nykaa and Mphasis during June 2022. The selling was focussed on taking profits off the table in stocks that had shown traction but had gotten into cyclical pressures.

Mid-cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in June 2022

What exactly is the methodology to determine if a stock is mid-cap? Here again, we stick to the AMFI definition. If top 100 stocks by market cap, as explained earlier, are classified as large cap stocks; then the 101st to 250th rank are classified as mid-cap stocks. Here is a quick look at which mid cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in June 2022.

Let us focus on the mid-cap buying first. In June 2022, mutual funds overall added 623 lakh shares of Motherson Sumi Wiring, 569 lakh shares of IDFC First Bank, 113 lakh shares of India Energy Exchange (IEX), 41 lakh shares each of Tata Communications & Petronet LNG and 38 lakh shares of Bata India. In addition, MFs also added smaller quantities of HDFC AMC, Laurus Labs, Page Industries and Prestige Estates. Many of these mid-caps had corrected sharply in the market fall and MFs used the fall to rectify sectoral imbalances.

We now turn to the major mid-cap selling. About 654 lakh shares of Vodafone Idea were sold in June 2022. In addition, MFs sold 250 lakh shares of GMR Infrastructure, 128 lakh shares of L&T Finance Holdings, 89 lakh shares of BHEL, 72 lakh shares of Sun TV Networks and 29 lakh shares of Oil India in June 2022. There was also selling in ICICI Securities, Deepak Nitrite, Policybazaar and LTTS in smaller quantities. The theme continued to be to stay light on mid-caps where news flows were not encouraging. MFs exited mid-cap plays more vulnerable to volatility in exchange rates and oil prices.

Small cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in June 2022

Finally we turn to the small cap category. On the market cap ranking, the stocks ranked 251st and lower are classified as small caps by AMFI and we maintained that definition. Here we look at key small cap stocks where mutual funds were active in June 2022.

In June, mutual funds added 58 lakh shares of recently listed Aether Industries, 17 lakh shares of JTEKT India, 14 lakh shares of Mirza International, 11 lakh shares each of Rain Industries & Tata Coffee, 10 lakh shares of Anupam Rasayan and 6 lakh shares of Sapphire Foods. Mutual funds added smaller quantities of Ethos Ltd, Nazara Technologies and Safari Industries during June 2022.

Finally, let us look at small-cap selling in June 2022. About 188 lakh shares of RBL Bank were sold in June 2022 for obvious reasons. In addition, MFs sold 74 lakh shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance, 29 lakh shares of Strides Pharma, 25 lakh shares of Greaves Cotton, 24 lakh shares of Chennai Petroleum and 15 lakh shares of India Cements. In addition, mutual funds sold smaller quantities of Mastek, Alkyl Amines, GNFC and IIFL Wealth.

How do we summarize the mutual fund churn story for June 2022? There was a rush to churn portfolios with bias towards profit making mid-caps and small caps. There was also urgency to get out of stagnating stocks or where vulnerability to macro headwinds was elevated. Generally, it was seen that mutual funds have been looking for opportunities in mid-caps and small caps but digging for value in large caps. Clearly, the focus of the mutual funds has been on the macro headwinds, which don’t seem to be going away in a hurry.

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Large cap, mid-cap and small caps that MFs traded in July 2022

  • India Infoline News Service
  • 17 Aug , 2022
  • 9:27 AM
July 2022 was unique in one sense. After 9 months of consistent selling by the FPIs, July saw FPI buying to the tune of $634 million. The figure may look paltry when juxtaposed with $33 billion of selling in the 9 months prior to that. July was another busy month for the domestic funds. Stable SIP flows ensured that equity funds stayed well supplied and there was enough to churn in the markets. Domestic mutual funds spread their investments across large caps, mid-caps and small caps. While large caps provide beta and stability the mid-caps and small caps provide alpha, or what is known in simple parlance as excess returns.

July 2022 was a month of robust flows into equity funds, although it was the passive funds that saw more inflows compared to the active equity funds. However, the real story in equity funds is about SIPs and how investors are persisting with SIPs. Despite challenging stock market conditions and macro headwinds, investors kept their faith in the SIP approach to equity funds and that is the good news.

The million dollar question is; what did the mutual funds do with all these flows and where did they allocate these funds. Here we look at the major large cap, mid-cap and small cap stocks that the mutual funds bought and sold in the month of July 2022. This is not focussed on any specific AMC but a macro look at equity funds overall. The idea is to gain insights into the stock preferences of domestic mutual funds.

What are the large caps that mutual funds bought and sold in July 2022

Let us begin with a rudimentary understanding of large cap stocks. We stick to the AMFI definition based on market cap rankings. Here is how the large caps are identified. The universe of listed stocks on NSE and BSE are ranked descending on market cap. Out of this list, the top-100 stocks by market cap or market value are defined as large cap stocks and reviewed by AMFI every 6 months. Here are the major large cap stocks that mutual funds bought and sold in the month of July 2022.

We begin with the large cap buying in July. Overall, the mutual funds added 1,082 lakh shares of Zomato Ltd, 104 lakh shares of HDFC Life Insurance, 69 lakh shares of UPL Ltd, 43 lakh shares of Berger Paints, 31 lakh shares of Muthoot Finance, 21 lakh shares of Gland Pharma, 16 lakh shares of Siemens Ltd and 5 lakh shares of Piramal Enterprises Ltd. Mutual funds also added smaller quantities of Adani Total Gas and IRCTC Ltd. Mutual funds used lower levels to buy Zomato, but this is substantially on account of the Uber Holdings block deal, which was largely absorbed by mutual funds. Consumer stories saw buying interest.

We now turn to key large cap selling by mutual funds in the month of July 2022. Even in the previous month, there was some effort to sell out of metals and that has continued in July 2022 also. A total of 230 lakh shares of Vedanta Ltd were sold, in the light of the pressure on metal prices. In addition, 164 lakh shares of Ambuja Cements, 147 lakh shares of GAIL India, 126 lakh shares of Wipro, 38 lakh shares of JSW Steel, 37 lakh shares of Indus Towers, 34 lakh shares of LIC and 25 lakh shares of Godrej Consumer Products were sold in July 2022. Mutual funds also sold smaller quantities of Macrotech and Hindustan Zinc during the month of July 2022. The selling was focussed on taking profits off the table on commodity stocks and reallocating to under-priced alternatives.

What are the mid-caps that mutual funds bought and sold in July 2022

What exactly is the methodology to determine if a stock is mid-cap? Here again, we stick to the AMFI definition. Once the top 100 stocks by market cap are classified as large cap stocks; then the 101st to 250th ranked stocks by market cap are classified as mid-cap stocks.

Let us focus on the mid-cap buying first. In July 2022, mutual funds overall added 213 lakh shares of NALCO, 187 lakh shares of GMR Infrastructure, 139 lakh shares of India Energy Exchange (IEX), 127 lakh shares of SAIL, 75 lakh shares each of BHEL, 62 lakh shares of PB Fintech, 56 lakh shares of CG Power, 25 lakh shares each of Sun Pharma & Laurus Labs and 12 lakh shares of Star Health & Allied Insurance. Many of these mid-caps had corrected sharply in the market fall and MFs leveraged the fall to restore sectoral allocations.

We now turn to the major mid-cap selling. In July, MFs sold 109 lakh shares of NMDC, 60 lakh shares of Canara Bank, 41 lakh shares of Oil India, 37 lakh shares of Indraprastha Gas (IGL), 19 lakh shares of Kansai Nerolac Paints, 16 lakh shares of L&T Finance Holdings and 12 lakh shares of Polycab India in July 2022. There was also selling in Colgate Palmolive, LTTS and ICICI Securities in smaller quantities. The theme was to stay light on mid-caps where news flows were not encouraging. But with oil topping out, there has been perceptible value hunting in mid-caps.

What are the small caps that mutual funds bought and sold in July 2022

Finally we turn to the small cap stocks category. On market cap ranking, the stocks ranked 251st and lower are classified as small caps by AMFI and we held that definition. Here we look at key small cap stocks where mutual funds were active in July 2022.

In July 2022, mutual funds added 56 lakh shares of Granules India, 36 lakh shares of Kalyan Jewellers, 26 lakh shares of Sapphire Foods, 25 lakh shares of India Cements, 12 lakh shares of Tata Coffee and 11 lakh shares of Rain Industries. Mutual funds added smaller quantities of GNFC, India Pesticides, Eureka Forbes and Ceat in the month of July 2022.

Finally, let us look at small-cap selling in July 2022. Mutual funds sold 88 lakh shares of NCC Ltd, 79 lakh shares of NBCC India Ltd, 50 lakh shares of MRPL, 40 lakh shares of ITD Cementation, 35 lakh shares of Sterlite Technologies & Prism Johnson and over 17 lakh shares of Oriental Hotels and Phillips Carbon Black (PCBL). In addition, mutual funds sold smaller quantities of Mahanagar Gas and SJS Enterprises .

What is the story that emerges from the July 2022 mutual fund churn data? Clearly, there is optimism as mutual funds have focussed largely on buying quality large caps. The bet is on a market revival, wherein it is normally the large caps that lead the way. The broad message is that the mutual funds find the risk reward favourable for the large caps at this point.

Large cap, mid-cap and small caps that MFs traded in February 2023

  • 14 Mar , 2023
  • 11:35 AM
  • After sharp selling by FPIs to the tune of $3.52 billion in January 2023, the FPI selling was relatively more subdued at $640 million in February 2023.

The month of the February was largely marked by the aftermath of the sell-off in Adani group stocks and led to the markets closing lower for the month. After net selling $16 billion of equities in the year 2022, FPIs have sold $4.21 billion in the first two months of 2023. The surge in FPI buying in the second half of 2022 has not really sustained in the current calendar year.

Lot of domestic money is flowing into equities

If FPIs remained on the sell side, domestic institutions like mutual funds, LIC and the domestic insurance companies remained buyers. In the last 17 months, domestic players have been consistent buyers, even as FPIs have been selling. For global investors, the Fed hawkishness, India’s vulnerability to inflation and its relatively higher valuations, have been sentiment dampeners. In the last few quarters, domestic institutions have not only been consistent buyers, but have also raised their stakes in Indian companies on a yoy basis. 

If you look at February 2023, flows into equity funds were to the tune of This is at a time when FPI share of Indian companies has been gradually falling. For the month of February 2023, Indian mutual funds got SIP inflows of Rs15,686 crore, SIP inflows were to the tune of Rs13,686 crore and NFOs collected Rs7,187 crore. That is a lot of money and that raises a very pertinent question. Where was all that money being invested? The best way to answer that question from an equity perspective is to look at the portfolio changes of mutual funds. 

We focus on the stocks that mutual funds and the stocks that they sold and in what quantity. Mutual funds are an imposing number as they manage close to Rs40 trillion as AUM under active and passive equity and debt combined. That is nearly $500 billion and that is a lot of money. Here is what mutual funds did in February 2023 across large caps, mid-caps, and small caps.

Large cap stock moves of mutual funds in February 2023

What do we understand by large caps? For simplicity and for comparison purposes, we stick to the AMFI definition based on market cap rankings. This is how AMFI does it. Firstly, the combined universe of listed stocks on NSE and BSE are ranked descending based on market capitalization. From this list, the top-100 stocks by market capitalization are classified as large cap stocks. This list is reviewed by AMFI on a half yearly basis to ensure definitions are up to date. Here are major large cap stocks mutual funds bought and sold in February 2023.

Let us start with the mutual fund large cap buys first! Overall, the mutual funds added 497 lakh shares of GAIL India Ltd, 252 lakh shares of Tata Motors, 111 lakh shares of Tech Mahindra Ltd, 72 lakh shares of Interglobe Aviation (Indigo Airlines), 30 lakh shares of Dabur India Ltd, 15 lakh shares of LTI Mindtree and 12 lakh shares of Havells India Ltd. Apart from the above, mutual funds added smaller quantities of Info Edge Ltd, Macrotech Developers Ltd and Hindustan Zinc Ltd during February2023. There appears to be an attempt by mutual funds to do value buying amidst the correction in select stocks and correct under-exposure.

We now turn to major large cap selling by mutual funds in February 2023. The selling was prominent in select Adani stocks, especially in the aftermath of the Hindenburg report. A total of 664 lakh shares of Bank of Baroda were sold, apart from 289 lakh shares of Adani Ports and SEZ, 275 lakh shares of Ambuja Cements and 17 lakh shares of Adani Enterprises within the Adani group. Other major stocks sold in February 2023 included 174 lakh shares of Tata Power, 116 lakh shares of Vedanta, 43 lakh shares of UPL Ltd and 11 lakh shares of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. Mutual also funds sold smaller quantities of Adani Total Gas and Tata Elxsi during February 2023.

Mid-cap stock moves of mutual funds in February 2023

Let us now turn to the AMFI methodology to classify a stock as mid-cap? Under the AMFI definition, once the top 100 stocks by market cap are classified as large cap stocks, the 101st to 250th ranked stocks by market cap would qualify as mid-caps. Here are the mid-cap stocks that mutual funds bought and sold in February 2023.

Let us first focus on mid-cap buying in February 2023, to begin with. Overall, mutual funds added 134 lakh shares of Biocon Ltd, 103 lakh shares of Syngene International, 38 lakh shares of One97 Communications Ltd (Paytm), 23 lakh shares of Coforge Ltd, 12 lakh shares of HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd, 8 lakh shares of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd and 7 lakh shares of Star Health and Allied Insurance Ltd. In addition, mutual funds added smaller quantities of 3M India, Dr Lal Pathlabs and Blue Dart Express Ltd. Mid-cap buying was focused on alpha seeking with a focus on the Biocon group stocks.

We now turn to major mid-cap selling. In February 2023, Mutual Funds sold 687 lakh shares of Vodafone Idea Ltd, 298 lakh shares of IDFC First Bank, 258 lakh shares of Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) Ltd, 152 lakh shares of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), 123 lakh shares of CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd, 64 lakh shares of Canara Bank, 18 lakh shares of Phoenix Mills, 16 lakh shares of Aditya Birla Capital as well as Sun TV Network and 6 lakh shares of Colgate Palmolive. Like in the previous months, the selling was quite pronounced in Vodafone Idea, IDFC First Bank and SAIL.

Small cap stock moves of mutual funds in February 2023

Finally we turn to the small cap stocks. On market cap ranking, the stocks ranked 251st and lower are classified as small caps by AMFI. Here is a quick snapshot of key small cap stocks where mutual funds were active in February 2023. 

In February 2023, mutual funds added 95 lakh fresh shares of PVR Ltd, 83 lakh shares of Zensar Technologies, 76 lakh shares of Heritage Foods, 48 lakh shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd, 20 lakh shares of Syrma SGS Technologies, 9 lakh shares of Aavas Financiers and 7 lakh shares of Kaynes Technology India Ltd. In addition, mutual funds also purchased smaller quantities of small cap stocks including Safari Industries, Privi Specialty Chemical Industries and Nazara Technologies Ltd during the month of February 2023.

Let us conclude with the small-cap selling in the month of February 2023. Mutual funds sold 160 lakh shares of National Aluminium Company (NALCO) Ltd, 12 lakh shares of ICICI Securities, 10 lakh shares of Easy Trip Planners and 7 lakh shares of Anupam Rasayan Ltd. In addition, the month of February 2023 also saw mutual funds net selling smaller quantities of stocks like CarTrade, Anand Rathi Wealth, Greaves Cotton, DCX Systems, Data Patterns India Ltd and Prudent Corporate Advisory Services Ltd.

What are the major takeaways from the buying and selling data of mutual funds in the month of February 2023? In the large caps, there is a shift into old favorites and dividend yield plays as a hedge against market volatility. In the mid-cap and the small cap space, the shifts are a lot more focused in favor of alpha. However, at a time when the concerns are more at a macro level and about global headwinds, the mutual funds are finding a lot of solace in stock selection among the mid-cap and small cap stocks.

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  • 17 August, 2022 |
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Domestic mutual funds spread their investments across large caps, mid-caps and small caps in July.

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