Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are back in a selling mode again. Their daily net sale touched a two-year high of Rs 359.2 crore on September 3 according to data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).
But Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) brokers were confused by the Sebi data. They said if the FIIs were net sellers on the bourses, the market would have crashed by around 100-150 points yesterday.
However, the BSE sensex was down by only 27.49 points on September 3 to close at 3,159.77. Others attribute the high sales figures to FIIs having responded to the Reliance group's open offer to buy Indian Petrochemical Corporation Ltd shares.
More From This Section
The Sebi figures for September 3 show the FIIs bought and sold equity shares worth Rs 93.5 crore and Rs 452.7 crore, respectively. This is the highest net selling on a day in the past two years. The FIIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 509.5 crore on September 6, 2000. That also happened to be the all-time high single-day net sale when FIIs bought 215.8 crore and sold Rs 725.3 crore worth of equity shares.
Single-day net sales by FIIs were the second-highest on September 19, 2000, at Rs 484 crore. The third largest was Rs 459.8 crore on July 17, 2000, and the fourth was Rs 388.7 crore on July 20, 2000.