As many as 25 mutual fund companies, which manage equity assets worth nearly Rs 1,90,000 crore, reduced or exited positions in 145 stocks in June while adding 160 stocks.

Stocks that attracted significant interest from a number of fund houses included Network 18 Media & Investments, Chambal Fertilisers & Chemicals, Standard Chartered PLC (IDR), IBN18 Broadcast, Indraprastha Gas, Jain Irrigation Systems, Karur Vysya Bank, Muthoot Finance, Petronet LNG, Power Finance Corporation, Sabero Organics Gujarat, Sterlite Technologies and United Bank of India.

Stocks that figured on the sell list of most fund houses included Television Eighteen India, Sun TV, BGR Energy Systems, Ashok Leyland, Bharat Forge, Piramal Healthcare and Titan Industries.

At the end of June, most popular stocks among the 25 mutual fund houses included ICICI Bank, Infosys, Reliance Indust-ries, State Bank of India, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, HDFC Bank and Larsen & Toubro – with at least 21 fund majors holding them in different portfolios.

At least 20 asset managers had investments in Bharti Airtel, Bank of Baroda, HDFC, Gail, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Hindalco Industries.

Mutual fund schemes hold investments in at least 730 stocks overall.

More than 30 stocks saw selling by at least two fund houses during the month. Some of them included ABG Shipyard, Bombay Rayon, Canara Bank, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, GTL, Hindalco Industries, India Cements, Indiabulls Realty, KS Oils, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, Mundra Port, Praj Industries, PVR, Sobha Developers and SpiceJet.

Stocks that saw additions or fresh buying by at least two fund houses included Alstom Projects India, Bajaj Holdings, Balrampur Chini Mills, BEML, Bombay Dyeing, Cholamandalam Investment, Deccan Chronicle (publisher of Financial Chronicle), Dena Bank, Engineers India, Godrej Consumer Products, Kajaria Ceramics, Lanco Infratech, Marico, NHPC, Patni Computer Systems, Siyaram Silk Mills, Tata Power Company and Zee Entertainment Enterprises.

The market momentum during this period was generally languid, and it has remained confined to a broad range, making it one of the worst performing markets, globally. Sensex fell for the second straight quarter during the April-June period and is down 8.1 per cent over the past six months.

“The momentum in the equities market has been largely sluggish because of tepid FII participation, perceived lacunae in economic reforms, a string of issues pertaining to transparency in political and corporate space, high inflation and interest rate environment and negative to modest FII inflows,” said Sandesh Kirkire, CEO of Kotak Mutual Fund.

This could explain why some fund houses remained comparatively quieter in terms of portfolio reshuffle while others did some house cleaning. The maximum shuffle, in terms of number of stocks sold or bought, was seen in the schemes of Religare Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, IDFC Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund.

IDFC Mutual Fund said stock and sector selection becomes pertinent to deliver better growth than the broader market in a scenario where economic growth is moderating. One needs to orient the portfolio towards sectors and companies with stable earnings profiles and better growth and valuation metrics compared with the broader market.

Morgan Stanley MF continued to maintain a conservative stance in its portfolios, going overweight on pharmaceuticals, consumer products and software services.

“Incrementally, we have cut underweight positions on financials and capital goods in anticipation of peaking interest rate cycle and better outlook for order bookings in the second half of the year,” said Jayesh Gandhi, lead portfolio manager for multi/mid-cap equities at Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund.

Fund houses that have sold or exited more stocks than those added or entered into included JM Financial Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, UTI Mutual Fund, HSBC Mutual Fund and Sundaram Mutual Fund. Some of these (ICICI, Sundaram and HSBC) are also on the list of fund houses that have at least 10 per cent cash in their equity schemes, according to a report by Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund. zz

kumarsroy@mydigitalfc.com