Mutual Fund Tracker: Top 20 fund houses trim exposure in these 5 sectors; are you present in any?

At a time when Nifty50 logged its worst monthly fall in two years, shedding 5 per cent in February, domestic mutual funds' equity Asset Under Management (AUM) broke a 14-month gaining streak, falling 1.3 per cent month-on-month (MoM) during the same period, a Fund Folio report by brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities showed.
 
Total equity value of the top twenty Asset Management Companies (AMCs) slipped 2.4 per cent MoM in February, while it grew 56.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY), the report added.
 
Meanwhile, the gross inflows in mutual funds declined 26.7 per cent MoM to Rs 34,600 crore. However, net inflows grew 5.7 per cent because of a sharp fall in redemptions coming in at Rs 18400 crore, down 42.3 per cent MoM.
 
Sectoral trend
 
Sectorally, MFs showed interest in Technology, Telecom, Utilities, Consumer, Metals, Autos, NBFCs, Retail and Healthcare. Weightage in these sectors grew on a monthly basis, while Banks (Private and PSU), Capital Goods, Oil & Gas, Media and Cement saw an MoM decrease in weight.
 
Capital goods sector fell to fourth position in sector allocation of mutual funds. NBFC sector’s weight increased, which took over Capital Goods to take the third position in sector allocation of mutual funds. NBFC was at the seventh position 12 months ago.
 
However, comparing with BSE-200, Capital Goods, Healthcare, and Autos are over-owned i.e. the ownership of mutual funds in these sectors vis-à-vis BSE-200 is at least 1 per cent higher. 16 funds overown Capital Goods, 9 funds Healthcare and Autos and Cement are over-owned by 8 funds.
 
Top sectors where ownership of mutual funds vis-à-vis BSE-200 is at least 1 per cent lower are Oil & Gas (18 funds under-owned), Technology (17 fundsunder-owned), Consumer (16 funds under-owned), Private Banks (15 funds under-owned) and NBFCs (15 funds under-owned).
 
Individual stocks
 
Among top five stocks which saw their value increase on a monthly basis, three belonged to technology. Infosys, one of the preferred stocks among MFs in February, saw net buying by 15 funds. The stock was up 2 per cent during the month, and its value increased by Rs 920 crore. Other Technology stocks witnessing an increase in value on MoM basis were TCS (Rs 890 crore) and Wipro (Rs 570 crore). Notably, both stocks were down by 2.4% per cent and 3.9 per cent, respectively for the month.
 
Value shocks were significant in Banking stocks. Of the top 10 stocks in terms of value decrease MoM, six were from Banking. ICICI Bank (-Rs 351 crore), SBI (-Rs 241 crore), HDFC Bank (-Rs 236 crore), PNB (-Rs 159 crore), Yes Bank (-Rs 1300 crore) and Indusind Bank (-Rs 970 crore) saw maximum decline in value.
 
Equity AUM vs Market cap
 
Equity AUM as percentage of India’s market capitalisation came in at all-time high of 5.3 per cent, up 90 basis points YoY.
 

(Source: MOSL)
 
Performance of top 25 MF schemes 
 
All the top-25 schemes by AUM closed lower MoM. Those registering the highest fall were HDFC Equity Fund (-6.6 per cent MoM change in NAV), Reliance Tax Saver(ELSS) Fund (-6.5 per cent MoM change in NAV), HDFC Top 200 Fund (-6.3 per cent MoM change in NAV), Franklin India High Growth Companies Fund (-6.1 per cent MoM change in NAV) and HDFC Tax Saver Fund (-5.8 per cent MoM change in NAV).

(Source: MOSL)

Note: Equity growth schemes have been considered for this comparison