It's a good time to be in the Indian mutual
fund (MF) industry. Retail mutual fund
folios have increased for the 3rd consecutive quarter to cross the 4 crore mark
for the first time in over 2 years.
Retail folios rose 2.36% in the latest quarter,
following 3.42% and 1.69% rise in the preceding 2 quarters, respectively.
In absolute terms, retail folios increased by
9.43 lakh to 4.09 crore, led by the equity MF category. Overall, the industry
saw a rise of 10.38 lakh folios (2.49%) in the latest quarter, according to
data compiled by CRISIL.
The rise in investor accounts or folios is
happening at a time when capital markets have been steady and have given
positive returns.
Retail equity fund folios have been on a steady
uptrend since March 2014 as investors have been pumping money in the category,
citing uptrend in the underlying equity market.
Nearly 8.17 lakh equity folios were added in the
June (2015) quarter, taking the current total to 3.16 crore; 11.82 lakh
accounts were added in the preceding quarter.
Even the smart money is getting to mutual funds
at a good pace. The high net worth individuals or / HNI (individuals investing
Rs. 5 lakh or more) segment saw a rise of 6.22% or 0.89 lakh folios to 15.20
lakh folios. This compares with a rise of 1.09 lakh folios in the preceding
quarter. The rise was led by the equity category (48% of the total HNI folio
base), which reported an addition of 0.70 lakh folios.
The main stay of the Rs 12 lakh crore asset
strong Indian mutual fund industry is debt schemes. And investors have been
thronging such schemes as well. Debt fund folios (16% of the total fund folio
count) increased for the second successive quarter to 68.65 lakh in June 2015
from 68.35 lakh in March 2015.
Within debt funds, retail folios scaled a new
high of 61.38 lakh folios. The category saw an addition of 32,578 retail folios
in the June quarter compared with 70,491 retail folios in the previous quarter.
There have been some casualties. While equity
culture has gained, gilt funds have lost sheen. Gilts funds saw closures of 585
(consolidated) folios in the retail & HNI segments in the latest quarter
following an addition of 6,030 and 6,781 folios in the preceding quarters,
respectively.
Gold ETFs continued to lose lustre. Gold exchange
traded funds (ETFs) posted nearly 1% decline or 4,467 folio closure to end at
4.61 lakh folios following 21,742 folio closure in the previous quarter. The
retail segment saw closure of 4,236 folios in the latest quarter as investors
shunned the category due to subdued performance by the underlying asset.
No comments:
Post a Comment