Reflecting the positive trend of inflows in equities, investors accounts in equity funds went up by 3.69 lakh in December, shows the latest SEBI data. Equity funds received net inflows of over Rs. 9,000 crore last month. Consequently, the total investor base in equity funds has now reached 3.12 crore.
With the tax season approaching, ELSS funds saw addition of over 1 lakh folios by collecting Rs. 907 crore in December. Balanced funds continued the positive momentum by adding 1.08 lakh folios. The category received net inflows of Rs. 3,947 crore in December.
Folio count as on December 2016 (in lakh)
Equity ETFs too have been gaining traction. The category added 23,252 folios with a healthy Rs. 4,349 crore net inflows. The Sensex had dipped 3% in December from 26,559 after recovering to 26,626 on December 30, which presented an opportunity for investors to enter the market. The equity AUM (including balanced, ELSS and equity ETFs) now stands at Rs. 5.63 lakh crore, which is 34% of industry’s total Rs. 16.44 lakh crore AUM.
Barring overseas fund of funds, all other categories saw a growth in folios.
The total investor base of the industry increased from 5.20 crore in November to 5.28 crore in December, largely due to growth in equity folios. Income funds too contributed to this growth by adding over 1.19 lakh folios.