The latest AMFI data shows that overall retail folios across categories increased by 55.76 lakh last year, primarily due to healthy folio growth in equity funds. Despite 11% drop in Sensex last calendar year, retail equity folios jumped from 2.96 crore in December 2014 to 3.35 crore in December 2015, an increase of 39.52 lakh folios. Industry experts say that new SIP registrations is the main reason behind the growth in equity folios. This is evident by the growth in the retail AUM in equity funds which went up from Rs. 1.81 lakh crore in December 2014 to Rs. 2.07 lakh crore in December 2015.
Debt
Apart from equity, 2015 was a good year for debt funds as well. After equity, the highest growth in retail folios was seen in debt funds which increased from 60.34 lakh in December 2014 to 67.52 lakh in December 2015.
Balanced
Balanced funds too witnessed healthy growth in retail folios, which went up from 18.20 lakh to 22 lakh in the calendar year 2015. One of the reasons for the rapid growth witnessed by this category is due to the changes in tax structure of debt funds in FY 2013-14. “The category is seeing interest due to the changes in debt funds. Earlier, investors used to invest in debt and equity separately. Now, with the tax arbitrage going away, they are preferring to invest in balanced funds,” observes Vinod Jain of Jain Investments.
Gold ETFs
Due to the lackluster performance of gold, retail investors have been rushing out of this category. Value Research data shows that gold funds have lost 9% over a one year period. As a result, the retail folios in gold ETFs dropped by 34,585 from 4.75 lakh to 4.40 lakh last year last year.
Retail investors dominate the industry in folio count. Retail folios account for 76% or 3.35 crore of the total 4.36 crore industry folios (including all categories of investors). All in all, the total industry folio went up from 4.02 crore in December 2014 to 4.58 crore in December 2015, a growth of 55.76 lakh folios.
Retail folio growth
|
Category |
Folios Dec 2014 |
Folios Dec 2015 |
Change |
|
Equity |
29,646,971 |
33,599,662 |
3,952,691 |
|
Balanced |
1820451 |
2207712 |
387,261 |
|
Liquid |
236,743 |
262,690 |
25,947 |
|
Debt |
6,034,448 |
6,752,804 |
718,356 |
|
Gold ETFs |
475378 |
440793 |
(34,585) |
|
Other ETFs |
215069 |
250034 |
34,965 |
|
Gilt |
47,697 |
53,615 |
5,918 |
|
FOFs investing overseas |
144260 |
122887 |
(21,373) |
|
Total |
38,621,017 |
43,690,197 |
5,069,180 |
|
Total folios(including all categories) |
40,276,980 |
45,853,274 |
5,576,294 |
Source: AMFI
