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Retail investors sold Rs 8,000 crore shares in December quarter

January 21, 2004 10:48 IST

Cashing in on the runaway boom, retail investors have sold shares worth Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) in the quarter ended December 2003.

Cashing out

(Public shareholding
in per cent)

Quarter ended

Sep-03

Dec-03

Chg

ACC

35.35

25.55

-9.80

Bajaj Auto

29.56

28.71

-0.85

Bharti Tele-Vent

0.95

1.09

0.14

BHEL

1.10

1.02

-0.08

BSES

10.01

8.29

-1.72

Cipla

28.33

27.31

-1.02

Dr Reddy's Labs

12.88

12.15

-0.73

Grasim Ind

18.59

17.13

-1.46

Guj Ambuja Cem

14.93

13.98

-0.95

HDFC

14.27

13.73

-0.54

HDFC Bank

16.51

15.62

-0.89

Hero Honda

12.09

11.45

-0.64

Hindalco

13.72

12.90

-0.82

Hindustan Lever

20.78

20.31

-0.47

HPCL

8.32

7.70

-0.62

ICICI Bank

8.38

7.76

-0.62

Infosys Techno

9.43

9.00

-0.43

ITC

13.41

12.93

-0.48

Larsen & Toubro

26.52

23.62

-2.9

MTNL

2.32

2.32

0.00

ONGC

1.21

1.14

-0.07

Ranbaxy Labs

19.62

18.96

-0.66

Reliance Ind

15.44

14.04

-1.40

Satyam Computer

7.50

4.82

-2.68

SBI

7.42

7.06

-0.36

Tata Motors

14.77

14.08

-0.69

Tata Power

28.41

26.78

-1.63

Tata Steel

31.46

28.92

-2.54

Wipro

6.92

6.68

-0.24

Zee Telefilms

7.51

5.92

-1.59

Retail selling has gathered momentum in the last quarter; in the previous quarter, these investors--which includes non-promoter, non-institutional investors -- had sold only Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) worth of equity.

The shareholding data of 506 companies, compiled by the BS Research Bureau from the shareholding pattern posted on the websites of stock exchanges, show these investors have sold almost 370 million shares in the quarter.

Smartly, these investors have switched their investment preferences, cashing in on stocks that have gained and investing in low-priced stories.

Retail investors bought 226 million shares of low-value stock worth only Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion). It also means these investors took home almost Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) in one quarter.

With the index stocks posting an impressive performance during the quarter ended December 2003, retail investors sold 106 million BSE Sensex shares valued at Rs 4,789 crore (Rs 47.89 billion).

The only exceptions are MTNL, where investors held on to holdings, and Bharti Tele-Ventures, where they added 2.59 million shares in the quarter.

Sensex heavyweight Reliance Industries was top on the retail investors' selling list, with 19.51 million shares valued at Rs 1,118 crore (Rs 11.18 billion) sold.

They sold 16.72 million shares of ACC for Rs 411 crore (Rs 4.11 billion), 9.37 million shares of Tata Steel for Rs 416 crore (Rs 4.16 billion), 7.22 million shares of Larsen & Toubro for Rs 381 crore (Rs 3.81 billion) and 8.36 million shares of Satyam Computer for Rs 307 crore (Rs 3.07 billion).

An analysis of the sector trends shows that retail investors have pressed heavy sales in banking, cement, technology, oil and shipping scrips.

Retail investors sold 40 million bank shares worth Rs 690 crore (Rs 6.9 billion), 31 million shares of diversified companies worth Rs 1,383 crore (Rs 13.83 billion), 26 million shares of cement companies worth Rs 463 crore (Rs 4.63 billion), 38 million shares of technology companies valued at Rs 993 crore (Rs 9.93 billion), 14 million refinery stocks valued at Rs 278 crore (Rs 2.78 billion) and 5 million shares of shipping companies valued at Rs 172 crore (Rs 1.72 billion).
Deepak Korgaonkar in Mumbai