NEW DELHI: Retail investors have shown fresh confidence in the Indian stock market as flow of funds in the equity mutual funds has increased 16 per cent to Rs 3.57 lakh crore in April. According to the latest data available with Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), the industry’s equity assets under management (AUM) rose to Rs 3.57 lakh crore last month as against Rs 3.06 lakh crore in April last year.
MFs are those investment vehicles where pool of funds collected from a large number of investors for the purpose of investing in stocks, bonds, money market instruments among others.
Jitendra Solanki, registered investment advisor and founder of JS Financial says, “This is the good sign for the
market as most of these investments are through the systematic investment plan (SIP) route. Around, 60 lakhs of SIPs have been registered this year which means the money is hear to stay for atleast a period of 3-5 year period.”
Industry experts believe that there are various reasons for the sharp rise in SIPs. One, the industry feels that the initiatives that has been taken to increase educating investors and creating awareness over the past many years have started yielding results. Solanki also feels since fixed deposit interest rate by banks have come down, more investors have constantly looking out for alternative investments and also many first time investors started testing the equities through SIPs.
Despite over 5%slump in the benchmark BSE Sensex in last one year, investors pumped in over Rs 78,000 crore into equity schemes.