FPI Selling Continues For 6th Consecutive Month

Continuing their selling spree for the sixth straight month, overseas investors have pulled out a net Rs 45,608 crore from the Indian markets in March so far.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) fear that India would be impacted more by commodity price hikes, particularly in crude oil, since India is a major importer, said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

As per depositories data, FPIs pulled out Rs 41,168 crore from equities, Rs 4,431 crore from the debt segment and Rs 9 crore from hybrid instruments, taking the total net outflow between March 2-11 to Rs 45,608 crore.

This is the sixth consecutive month of FPI outflows from the Indian markets.

The selling is mainly confined to financials and IT since these segments constitute the bulk of assets under the custody of FPIs, Vijayakumar noted.

"An important takeaway from FPI selling is that it is not impacting all segments. For instance, FPIs sold IT stocks worth Rs 10,984 crore in February, but in March IT is one of the best performing sectors," he added.

Nimish Shah, Chief Investment Officer, Listed Investments, Waterfield Advisors, said the dollar has been gaining strength since August-September 2021 and the interest rates in the US have moved up now.

The geopolitical crisis has also moved market flows and shifted sentiment from risk-on to risk-off, resulting in withdrawals from most emerging market economies, he pointed out.

Shrikant Chouhan, Head - Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities, said other than Thailand, all other emerging markets have witnessed outflows till date in March.

"Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and Philippines witnessed FPI outflows to the tune of USD 7,089 million, USD 2,665 million, USD 426 million and USD 26 million, respectively. On the other hand Thailand witnessed inflows of USD 102 million," he said.

As per Shah, sectors like IT, pharma, banks and auto ancillary would do well going forward