Keep a watch on institutional positions

Use institutional presence as your first selection filter for small-cap stocks

The attitude divergence between foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) has been marked in the current fiscal year. While FPIs have sold Rs 501 billion of equity since April, DIIs have bought Rs 843 billion.  The FPIs have obviously been spooked by macro factors like rising crude prices, a weak rupee, which impacts their returns especially severely, and a rising fiscal deficit. The FPIs can also pick and choose their markets and they have chosen to curtail their rupee exposures, selling debt as well. 

Whatever domestic institutions may think about these macro-factors, there has been a continuous