MF industry adds 61,000 equity folios each day in January

SEBI’s latest data shows that the mutual fund industry has added a record 18.31 lakh new equity folios in January. Equity folios include pure equity funds, ELSS, balanced funds and ETFs.

A rough calculation indicates that the industry has added an average of 61,000 equity folios per day in the month of January. Thanks to the strong rally in the equity markets, the total equity folio count went up to 5.72 crore in January 2018.

In the equity funds category, pure equity funds have added over 12.84 lakh folios last month and the total number of pure equity folios stood at 4.11 crore. The shift to large-cap funds from mid- and small-cap funds can be the key reason for this increase in equity folios, experts say.

ELSS followed pure equity funds. The category added over 3.11 lakh folios in January. The total ELSS folios in January were 97.60 lakh. Demand for ELSS funds remained strong due to the tax season.

The balanced funds category which had witnessed significant traction in 2017, continued with its growth run. In percentage terms, the category witnessed the highest increase in folios. Folios under the category increased by 4.70% to 55.66 lakh folios in January.

On the other hand, equity ETF folios decreased for the second consecutive month by 1.86% to 7.47 lakh folios. 

Though the folios have increased, AMFI data also shows that inflows in equity funds in January 2018 have declined compared to December 2017. Equity funds received inflows of Rs.20,821 crore in January 2018 compared to net inflows of Rs.24,239 crore in December 2017.

Overall, the industry added 18.45 lakh folios in January while the total industry folio count was at 6.83 crore.

Folio count as on January 2018

Source: SEBI