Cash holdings of equity mutual fund (MF) schemes moderated in September amid a slowdown in fresh inflows. Equity MF schemes held cash worth Rs 1.76 trillion at the end of September 2025 - about Rs 400 crore lower than the previous month, according to a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
The competitive intensity in the mutual fund (MF) industry is moving beyond scheme performance, cost structures, and distribution. In recent months, several fund houses have rationalised exit loads applicable on redemptions.
Mutual funds (MFs) - flush with cash amid record inflows in July - invested heavily in the Rs 25,000-crore qualified institutional placement (QIP) of India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI). Fund managers acquired SBI shares worth Rs 10,200 crore last month, making the lender their biggest buy in July.
Mutual funds (MFs) managed a record Rs 66.2 trillion in assets during the July-September quarter, marking a 12.3 per cent increase over the previous three-month period - the highest quarterly jump in MF assets in at least five years. During the April-June period, the average assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs 59 trillion. The sharp rise in AUM, according to experts, is driven by a robust equity market rally and record inflows into equity schemes.
The Rs 6,145-crore initial public offer of electric two-wheeler company Ola Electric Mobility got fully subscribed on the second day of bidding on Monday, driven by demand from retail investors and non-institutional investors. The initial share sale received bids for 49,43,63,610 shares against 46,51,59,451 shares on offer, translating into 1.06 times subscription, according to the NSE data.
India's second-largest passenger vehicles firm will be valued at Rs 1.59 trillion at the top-end of the price band of Rs 1,865-Rs 1,960.
'The problem is that the bubble may not only be in valuations, but also in investors' minds.'
The top 10 fund houses are slowly losing ground to their smaller peers, even as they continue to hold the lion's share in the total assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund (MF) industry, according to an analysis of the quarterly AUM for the past six years. These fund houses had an average AUM of Rs 38.8 trillion in the third quarter (Q3) of 2023-24, which is 79 per cent of the total industry AUM of Rs 49.2 trillion. The share has come down steadily since Q3 of 2019-2020, when the share stood at 84 per cent.
HDFC Bank's latest shareholding data showed that the room for foreign investment has fallen just 5 basis points short of the threshold set by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) to fully include the stock in its indices. Currently, the index provider has applied an adjustment factor of 0.5 since the foreign room is less than 25 per cent. Removal of the adjustment factor will result in inflows of a massive $4.8 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) into HDFC Bank, according to Brian Freitas, a New Zealand-based analyst with Periscope Analytics.
Retail investors now own a larger share of smallcap companies than they did a year ago, thanks to their conviction in mutual fund (MF) schemes focused on this segment. Data from Capitaline shows that MFs' average holding in the National Stock Exchange Nifty Smallcap 250 Index stood at 9 per cent at the end of the October-December quarter of 2023-24 (FY24), up from 7.76 per cent in the same quarter of 2022-23.
Small and midcap schemes may impose restrictions on redemptions, cap employee withdrawals, and increase the exit load, while ensuring a proportionate liquidation of the portfolio during market crises to safeguard the interests of all investors. These measures have been outlined in the investor protection policies recently put out by mutual fund (MF) trustees. The policies for small and midcap schemes were prepared by MF trustees following directives from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) earlier this month.
The country's six largest smallcap schemes would require more than 20 days to liquidate half of their holdings, despite most of them maintaining high cash levels and having considerable exposure to more liquid largecap stocks, stress tests conducted by fund houses reveal. For midcap funds, the time required to sell half of the assets of the top six schemes varies between seven and 34 days, according to disclosures made by asset management companies. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had called for such tests in the face of strong inflows into smallcap and midcap funds, despite concerns over high valuations, to keep investors better informed.
Mutual funds (MFs) added systematic investment plan (SIP) accounts at a record pace in 2023 with the net additions in the calendar year surpassing 15 million - 24 per cent higher than the 2022 tally of 12.2 million, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).
FMPs remain an option for investors who believe interest rates could head downward over time and wish to lock in the current rates. TMFs have very low expense ratios, which makes them cost-efficient.
After a short-term blip, mutual funds (MFs) are back to adding new systematic investment plan (SIP) investors at a record high pace, which was seen during the financial year 2021-22 (FY22). During the first six months (H1) of this financial year (FY24), MFs have added a net 77 million SIP accounts compared to 56 million during the same period of FY23. The net additions this year are a tad higher than the 76.5 million additions in H1 of FY22.
The recently-created flexi-cap fund category is emerging as the hottest segment in the Rs 11-trillion equity mutual funds (MFs) space. Buoyed by the success of ICICI Prudential Flexicap Fund, other MFs are lining up new fund offerings (NFO) in this segment. Industry players say the flexi-cap category could emerge as the biggest segment in the equity MF space. Recently, ICICI Pru Flexicap's NFO collected a record Rs 10,200 crore.
At a time when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were unloading Jio Financial Services from their portfolios, some active fund managers were placing large bets on the demerged financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows. Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund were the top MF buyers of the stock in August. They bought around 60 million shares each, together investing around Rs 2,800 crore.
Active largecap funds, which have the toughest job in terms of outperforming the benchmark, did better in 2023 as their bets in the mid and smallcap stocks paid off.
Mutual funds (MFs) are betting on a turnaround in the healthcare sector to boost returns but are divided on the prospects of the information technology (IT) sector amid uncertain growth outlook. At the end of June, all of the top 20 fund houses were overweight on the healthcare sector vis--vis the sector's presence in the BSE 200 index, shows a report by Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFS). In the case of the IT sector, only six of the 20 fund houses had overweight positions.
Actively-managed large-cap mutual fund (MF) schemes have managed to regain some lost sheen this year after faring poorly in the 2022 calendar year (CY22). At the end of the first six months (H1) of CY23, 78 per cent of the active large-cap schemes were ahead of the Nifty50 index funds as against just 26 per cent in 2022. When compared to the Sensex index funds, 61 per cent active funds have delivered better returns, shows an analysis of Value Research data.
Two equity funds at the opposite ends of the risk matrix - small-cap and arbitrage - bucked the 'low inflow' trend in May this calendar year 2023 (CY23) to receive the highest net inflows in recent years. The Rs 3,280-crore net inflows into small-cap schemes in May was the highest for the category since the mutual fund (MF) industry started releasing fund-wise inflow data in April 2019. Arbitrage schemes raked in a net Rs 6,640 crore - the highest since July 2021.
Experts say the impact on the schemes' NAVs may vary in the coming days, depending upon how fund houses treat the developments on VIL and whether there are any further rating downgrades or credit events.
On an average, small-cap funds have generated annualised returns of 67.5% in the last two years. Large-cap funds and mid-cap funds have given average annualised returns of 41.3% and 53.4% respectively.
Increasing awareness about mutual funds, ease of transactions through digitisation and sharp surge in equity markets have aided asset management companies to add a staggering 3.17 crore investor accounts in 2021-22, with experts saying the trend is likely to continue this fiscal as well. This was a significant rise from 2020-21 when 81 lakh accounts (or folios in mutual fund parlance) were opened, data with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) showed. The ongoing financial year too appears to be promising in terms of folios as increase in investor accounts will enable people to move beyond fixed deposits and savings accounts, said Priti Rathi Gupta, founder of LXME, a financial platform for women.
Last October's circular meant that downstream investment by such funds by way of subscription or acquisition of shares would have been considered "indirect foreign investment" if their investment manager or sponsor is owned or controlled by a non-resident. The finance ministry has now said that mutual funds that invest more than 50 per cent in equity shall be omitted from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996.
The IPO is an offer for sale of 38 million shares by SBI, BOB, LIC, PNB and T Rowe Price. Barring T Rowe and PNB, the others are selling stake to comply with Sebi norms.
The asset manager is yet to resolve the impasse surrounding the payment of pension to its erstwhile employees who had opted for voluntary retirement in 2003.
Market watchers believe that the change in guidelines fly in the face of some of the recent initiatives taken by the government, such as easing norms for foreign portfolio investors.
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