MFs bought and sold these 30 stocks in March amid carnage on Street

March was a complete washout month for the equity market as benchmark indices plunged 23 percent, the biggest monthly decline since the global financial crisis of 2008. The broader markets, too, corrected in the range of 27-30 percent.

In fact, the sell-off was across sectors with majority of stocks hitting multi-year lows including largecaps and bluechips.

The spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) sent tremors across global markets as the economic impact worsened.

FIIs net sold Rs 65,816.70 crore worth of shares in March alone, the highest ever outflow in a single month. But domestic institutional investors came to the support with Rs 55,595.18 crore inflow during the month.

Mutual funds net bought Rs 28,891.17 crore worth of shares in March, which was also the highest ever inflow in a single month.

In fact, inflows into equity funds increased in March to Rs 11,723 crore from Rs 10,796 crore in February and SIP inflows came in at a record high during the month at Rs 8,641 crore.

Among largecaps, stocks that saw highest buying by mutual funds were Bharti Infratel, Adani Port, JSW Steel, InterGlobe Aviation and Eicher Motors during March 2020.

Meanwhile, asset management companies' lack of interest was seen in Piramal Enterprises, Colgate Palmolive, Tata Motors, Power Grid, and Asian Paints, said ICICI Direct.

The brokerage further said in midcaps, stocks like Tata Consumer Products, PVR, Shriram Transport, Ashok Leyland and Castrol India saw the highest interest.

In the smallcap segment, stocks like Suprajit Engineering, SpiceJet, Radico Khaitan, Lakshmi Machine Works and Sudarshan Chemical witnessed highest buying during March, said the brokerage.

Multi-cap and largecap funds witnessed a net inflows of Rs 4,328 crore as against Rs 3,230 crore in February. ELSS also saw Rs 1,994 crore of net inflows.

But mutual funds were net sellers in debt funds that witnessed an outflow worth Rs 1.95 lakh crore in March as against Rs 27,939 crore outflows in February.

"This was primarily due to year-end outflows from liquid funds, which saw a net outflow of Rs 1.10 lakh crore in March. Low duration funds, money market funds and short duration funds also witnessed outflows," Omkeshwar Singh, Head - Rank MF at Samco Securities told Moneycontrol.

Close to Rs 5 lakh crore have been wiped out from the MF industry in March, he said. The industry's AUM shrunk to Rs 22.26 lakh crore, 18 percent lower than Rs 27.23 lakh crore in February.

After that sharp fall, the market stabilised a bit and recovered 20 percent from lows touched on March 23 due to value buying and short covering along with hope that each day new infections in United States and Europe may be declining, but experts are convinced with the recovery as they feel these are bear market rallies.

"The recent rally looks like a bear market rally which may be a technical bounce back rather than a fundamental pullback. It seems market has factored-in further monetary stimulus by global central banks and a possible cure for COVID-19 in the near term," Amit Jain, Co-founder & CEO, Ashika Wealth Advisors told Moneycontrol.

According to him, the selling may resume soon & get worse for the global markets if the global economic activity worsens further from hereon.

Overall experts feel the market mood hereon will be determined by global cues than domestic.

"I don't see any possibility of large selling unless anything negative comes on the global front, which means the major sell-off if it happens going ahead will only because of global reason," Shailendra Kumar, CIO at Narnolia Financial Services said.

He feels the market downside will remain capped, which means 7,500 on the Nifty (broken on March 23) will not get broken till the large FII selling, while upside will be capped till we get a clear picture of FY21 corporate numbers.