Investor appetite for equity funds continued to be robust in May which was evident in the sustained rise in folios. The latest SEBI data shows that equity funds added 2.90 lakh folios in May. As a result, the total folio count of equity funds went up from 3.19 crore in April to 3.22 crore in May. The BSE Sensex was up 3% in May.
Folio Change April-May 2015
Experts say that stellar performance of equity funds has led to a revival of retail interest in equity funds.
The addition in folios was due to healthy inflows in existing schemes as equity funds saw net inflows of Rs. 10,076 crore (including ELSS). More significantly, majority of the inflows came in existing funds. Existing funds received gross inflows of Rs. 12,263 crore while NFOs collected Rs. 1,250 crore.
There were four new fund launches in May - Reliance Equity Savings Fund, SBI Equity Saving Fund, HDFC Focused Equity Fund - Plan B and Kotak India Growth Fund Series I which collectively mopped up Rs. 1,250 crore. As a result, the AUM of equity funds touched an all-time high of Rs. 3.65 lakh crore in May.
Apart from equity, balanced funds too saw an addition of 31,084 folios. The category saw net inflows of Rs. 2,384 crore.
Barring ETFs and fund of funds investing overseas, all other categories recorded a growth in folios. Overseas fund of funds lost 1,410 folios in May. This category has been continuously losing folios over the last few months.
ETFs lost 10,892 folios, mainly due to redemptions from Gold ETFs. Gold has been the worst performing category in the recent past. The category saw net outflows of Rs. 86 crore in May. As a result, Gold ETFs lost 11,732 folios. The AUM of Gold ETFs has fallen to Rs. 6,688 crore in May from Rs. 10,000 crore levels in 2013.
Other ETFs which track equity indices saw a marginal (840) increase in folios.
Thanks to the addition in equity folios, the total folio count of the industry went up from 4.20 crore in April to 4.23 crore in May. All in all, the industry added 3.40 lakh folios in May largely due to addition of folios in equity funds.
