Thanks to new fund launches and fresh inflows, equity funds continued to add new folios in April. Despite a 3% drop in Sensex in April, equity funds added 2.89 lakh folios, shows the latest SEBI data.
The addition in folios was due to healthy inflows in existing schemes as equity funds saw net inflows of Rs. 10,584 crore in April. The industry launched five closed end funds in April which together collected Rs. 615 crore. Advisors say that some money has come in arbitrage funds too. As a result, the AUM of equity funds increased from Rs. 3.46 lakh crore in March to new high of Rs. 3.51 lakh crore in April.
The total folio count of equity funds increased to 3.19 crore in April from 3.16 lakh in March. Balanced funds too saw an addition of 35,345 folios in April and received net inflows of Rs. 1,183 crore. Balanced fund category has delivered 31% absolute return over a one year period, shows Value Research data.
Folios as on April 2015
Barring overseas fund of funds and debt funds, all other categories saw an addition in folios. Debt funds received net inflows of Rs. 99,475 crore in April.
Overseas fund of funds lost 1,860 folios in April. This category is continuously losing folios and has delivered 7% over the last one year, shows Value Research data. Barring a few funds which invest in Asia and US markets, most international funds have been languishing. Goldman Sachs Hang Seng BeES Fund, Mirae Asset China Advantage Fund and JP Morgan JF Greater China Equity Off-shore Fund have been the top performing funds over a one year period with absolute returns of 35.94%, 35.68% and 35.54% respectively.
Thanks to the addition in equity folios, the total folio count of the industry increased from 4.17 crore in March to 4.20 crore in April.
With the markets having corrected in the recent past due to FII sell off, it remains to be seen if investors remain bullish on equities.
