FII, fund buying tops Rs 10,520 cr

Biggest ever monthly inflow in March.

Net investments by domestic mutual funds and foreign institutional investors in equities topped Rs 10,520 crore in March. This is the biggest ever monthly inflow of FIIs and mutual funds in the Indian stock market.

The FIIs accounted for over 60 per cent of the inflow "" Rs 6,487 crore "" and the mutual funds with Rs 4,033 crore accounted for the rest. In March 2005, the combined net purchase of stocks by FIIs and mutual funds was to the tune of Rs 9,121 crore.

With this, FIIs' net investment in the first three months of the calendar year touched $4 billion (Rs 17,954 crore). This is more than one-third or 37 per cent of the net investment of $10.7 billion (Rs 47,181 crore) made by them in calendar year 2005.

The FIIs started the current year with a positive note by making net investments of $805 million (Rs 3,678 crore) in January and followed it up with a $1.69-billion (Rs 7,588 crore) net investment in February.

In contrast, domestic funds turned net sellers of Rs 1,193 crore in January and Rs 179 crore in February.

The FIIs reported net inflows of $10.7 billion (Rs 47,181 crore) in 2005, $8.52 billion (Rs 38,965 crore) in 2004, $6.59 billion (Rs 30,459 crore) in 2003 and $751 million (Rs 3,566 crore) in 2002.

Domestic mutual funds reported record net inflow of Rs 13,305 crore in 2005 but were net sellers of Rs 752 crore in 2004. They had made net investments of Rs 533 crore earlier in 2003.

The FIIs, which started investing in the Indian markets in December 1993, have so far invested Rs 200,000 crore ($48.50 billion).

Analysts said India had the potential to draw $22 billion (Rs 1,00,000 crore) of FII investments this year. Over 882 FIIs have been registered in India and the numbers have been increasing daily. Just a year back, there were 686 FIIs and two years ago, there were 540.