Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have turned big sellers of BSE-500 stocks during the quarter ended September 2008. They have reduced their holdings in 162 stocks, out of 304, for which shareholding data for the September quarter is available on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) website.
The importance of the 304 stocks is that they accounted for 76 per cent of the market capitalisation of actively-traded stocks on BSE.
Of the 162 stocks, FIIs’ holding in 14 has declined by over 4 per cent each, while in 55 others, it has gone down between 1 and 4 per cent. Sectoral trends suggest that they have sold shares of banking, information technology, metal, shipping, cement, media, power, refineries, sugar and pharmaceutical sectors during the quarter under review.
A company-wise shareholding shows that their stakes in nine firms – Idea Cellular, Zee News, Astra Microwave, Electrosteel Castings, BPCL, Jai Corp, Adhunik Metaliks, Great Offshore and Hinduja Ventures — have dropped below the 10 per cent-mark in the September quarter, compared to the June 2008 quarter.
Among others, FIIs have reduced their stakes in Apollo Hospitals, Dabur Pharma, Gujarat NRE Coke, Bajaj Hindustan, Phoenix Mills and Shree Renuka Sugars by more than 5 per cent each. Their shareholding in Infosys Technologies, Patni Computer Services, Moser Baer, NIIT Technologies and MphasiS has declined in the range of 1 per cent to 5 per cent each.
In Reliance Industries, ONGC, Tata Power, HPCL, Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Power, FIIs have reduced their holdings by less than 1 per cent each during the quarter.
The BSE-500 index has underperformed the Sensex by reporting a 6 per cent fall during the quarter as compared to 4.5 per cent decline in the Sensex. FIIs have sold shares worth Rs 22,564 crore during the September quarter as compared to Rs 21,900 crore in the June quarter. So far, the BSE-500 index has declined by 24 per cent from its June 30, 2008 level against 21 per cent fall in the Sensex calculated from the same date.