MF industry adds over 2 lakh equity folios in May

Thanks to fresh inflows in existing funds on the back of a rally in equity markets, equity funds continued to add new folios in May. The latest SEBI data shows that equity funds added over two lakh folios in May.

What is interesting is that investor accounts are seeing an increase even as new fund launches have come down. There were only two new NFOs in the equity category - Edelweiss ETF-NIFTY Quality 30 and ICICI Prudential India Recovery Fund Series 5 which collectively mopped up Rs. 80 crore in May. The addition in folios was due to healthy inflows in existing schemes as equity funds including ELSS and ETFs saw net inflows of Rs. 5,500 crore in May.  As a result, the AUM of equity funds has reached close to Rs. 4.33 lakh crore in May.

Reflecting this positive trend, the total folio count of equity funds increased from 3.62 crore in April to 3.64 lakh in March.

Balanced funds

Balanced funds continued to gain popularity among investors as the category saw an addition of close to 44,500 folios in May and received net inflows of Rs. 974 crore. After the changes in tax structure of debt funds, many investors have rushed to balanced funds. The total folios in balanced funds increased from 25.21 lakh in April 2016 to 25.66 lakh.

Debt funds

Debt funds have also seen good traction as the total folio count in this category increased by 1.22 lakh in May, largely due to addition in income funds. The total folio count in debt funds increased from 85.55 lakh in April 2016 to 86.71 lakh in May 2016.

Income funds added over 1.10 lakh folios. Similarly, liquid funds too added 11,500 folios in May. However, gilt funds lost 142 folios in May.

ETFs

ETFs, which track the equity indices, are getting increasingly popular among investors. The folio count in this category has risen to 2.75 lakh in May 2016.

However, after witnessing continuous decline in investor accounts, gold ETFs made a comeback by adding 4,640 folios in May as gold prices have bounced back in the recent past.

Overseas fund of Funds

This category is seeing continuous erosion in folios. Folios in overseas fund of funds category dropped by 6,000 in May.

Overall, reflecting the positive sentiment among investors, the industry added close to 3.80 lakh folios in May. Thus, the total folio count across all categories increased to 4.84 crore in May 2016 from 4.80 crore in April 2016.

Folios as on May 2016

Source:SEBI