SBI, HDFC, ICICI mutual funds’ November portfolio changes: Banks weightage raised; IT, healthcare cut

Mutual funds saw the highest ever outflows in November as investors booked profits pulling away Rs 12,917 crore. Asset Under Management (AUM) of funds grew to Rs 30 lakh crore in the same month. The contrasting trends emerged in a month that saw the 50-stock NSE Nifty scale to fresh highs repeatedly. Domestic mutual funds, meanwhile, were seen increasing holdings in financial stocks, which were so far considered risky for the expected jump in non-performing assets. On the other hand, sectors such as healthcare and information technology witnessed selling from mutual funds, data sourced by brokerage firm Motilal Oswal said.

Fund houses shop financial stocks

Weight of private banks increased for the second consecutive month in November to 18.7%, its highest since January this year. Non-banking financial companies (NBFC) were also preferred by domestic fund houses increasing their weight to a nine-month high of 8.9%. Other sectors where mutual funds showed interest were, PSU banks, capital goods, metals, and automobiles. On-month basis, the weight of state-owned lenders increased 29.3% while that of the metal sector increased 22.2%.

Healthcare and information technology sector stocks, the silver lining for investors earlier this year, witnessed selling in November. IT sector weight was reduced 0.8% in the previous month while that of the healthcare sector was trimmed by 0.3%. Despite this both the sectors continued to remain the top sector holding for mutual funds. Consumer sector weightage was reduced for the sixth consecutive month to a low of 7.9%. Oil & Gas sector weightage hit a nine-month low of 7.6%.

Net sellers

Mutual funds were net sellers of 80% of Nifty 50 stocks in the month of November. The highest reduction came in for Bajaj Finserv shares, seeing an 18.9% fall. This was followed by IndusInd Bank, Nestle India, Tata Steel, and Tech Mahindra, all seeing double digit decline. Adani Ports, Dr Reddys Laboratories, HCL Technologies, Maruti Suzuki, Grasim, and UPL were the only stocks to register over 1% on-month growth.

Top weightage changes

SBI Mutual Fund’s top weightage changes in November included HDFC Bank, Gland Pharma, Bajaj Finance, and ICICI Bank. HDFC Mutual Fund was also seen increasing the weightage of financials with SBI, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank. ICICI Prudential’s top allocations were also from the banking space as it increased the weightage of HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, and Axis Bank.