Understanding retail attitude key to gauging market trends

One way of tracking changes in attitude is changes in mutual fund inflows

In March 2018, institutional investors bought Rs 183 billion with both foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and domestic institutions (DIIs) buying heavily. However, the Nifty fell by 3.6 per cent. Breadth also went extremely negative with close to 80 per cent of stocks listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) losing ground. 

The bulk of the market and the major indices made record highs in January. By end-March, according to a data analysis by website, Capitalmind.in, two-thirds of the NSE listed stocks were trading below their respective 200-Day Moving Averages (200-DMA) and the median retraction from the 52-week high was 34 per