Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have pulled out over Rs 10,000 crore from Indian equities in the first three weeks of September, primarilydue to rising US interest rates, recessionaryfears, and overvalued domestic stocks. Before the outflow, FPIs were incessantly buying Indianequities in the last six monthsfrom March to August and brought in Rs 1.74 lakh crore during the period. Mayank Mehra, smallcase, manager and principal partner at Craving Alpha,believes that strong economic growth prospects, attractive valuations, and government reforms could support foreign investment flows in the next month.
“Since valuations remain high even after the recent pullback and US bond yields are attractive (the US 10-year bond yield is around 4.49 per cent) FPIs are likely to press sales so long as this trend persists,” V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.
According to the data with depositories, in the 15 trading days, so far in September, FPIs were sellers in 11 days with a net withdrawal of Rs 10,164 crore. This figure includes bulk deals and investments through the primary market. Of the total pullout of Rs 10,164 crore so far this month (till September 22), over Rs 4,700 crore was withdrawn in the last week alone.
The latest outflow came after FPI investment in equities hit a four-month low of Rs 12,262 crore in August. FPI flows have displayed a subdued pattern over the past few weeks. This hesitancy among investors can be attributed to growing apprehensions about inflation and the interest rate landscape, particularly in the US, coupled with uncertainties regarding global economic growth, Himanshu Srivastava, Associate Director – Manager Research, Morningstar India, said. As a result, investors have turned cautious and adopted a “wait and watch” approach when considering investments in emerging markets like India, he added.
“Higher oil prices and elevated US yields are keeping the FPIs on the defensive, however, we infer that stable economic growth in India vis-à-vis China and other emerging markets (EMs) will draw FPIs back to the Indian equities,” Hitesh Jain, Strategist Institutional Equities Research at YES Securities India said.
On the other hand, FPIs invested Rs 295 crore in the country’s debt market during the period under review. With this, the total investment by FPIs in equity has reached Rs 1.25 lakh crore and close to Rs 28,476 crore in the debt market this year so far. The sectoral data revealed that as of September 15, mining, power, services, oil, and telecommunication registered the highest outflows, and sectors such as financial services, capital foods, consumer services, IT, and realty attracted cumulative buying.
