At the lowest point of trade on Thursday, the BSE Sensex was down just over 1,000 points or nearly 3%. Thursday’s 760-point correction took the BSE Sensex to 34,001—it was the third time this month that the Sensex closed more than 2% lower in a single day.
Since 1 September, the Sensex has lost nearly 11% of its value. Going by the technical definition, we are more than half way towards a bear market if this fall continues.
The silver lining through this volatile roller coaster ride has been steady investments by mutual fund investors. According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds of India (Amfi), the total inflows via systematic investment plans or SIPs, a bulk of which are in equity funds, was up for yet another month ending 30 September 2018 at ₹ 7,727 crore. This was 40% higher than the figure clocked in the same month in the previous year. Equity schemes, including equity-linked savings schemes (ELSS), witnessed a net inflow of ₹ 11,172 crore in September 2018, showed data.
