The Most Fancied Buys

As we all know by now, June was yet another dismal month for the Indian stock markets. In fact, June turned out to be one of the worst hit months since the markets starting going down in January. The combined equity assets of funds that stood at Rs. 1.22 lakh crore at the end of May, had declined to around Rs. 1 lakh crore in June. While the markets fell by around 18 per cent in the month, the total equity assets of funds declined by 17 per cent. The combined equity holding of funds was spread over a total of 815 stocks. Of these, the top 10 stocks accounted for around 30 per cent of the total assets and 72 stocks accounted for around 70 per cent of the assets. The bottom 10 per cent of the assets was massively diversified among 618 stocks. During this time, the fund managers predictably tried their best to keep their heads above the water by stacking up on some stocks while offloading others. Let’s take a look at what lured the fund managers in the unpredictable month of June. The soaring interest rates had not deterred the funds from investing in the sensitive Financial Services Sector. In terms of number of shares, Infrastructure