Buoyed by good inflows and strong showing by equity schemes, the assets under management of the mutual fund industry has zoomed past the Rs.12 lakh crore mark or around $200 billion for the first time ever in February .
Equity schemes alone have gained about Rs.1.3 lakh crore in assets or over $20 billion since the post-poll rally started in May . Investor accounts with MF schemes and demat accounts that is used for trading in shares have surged by nearly 28 lakh since April. Incidentally , the benchmark Sensex touched an all-time high of 30,000 points on Wednesday .
Net inflows into equity schemes has topped $10 billion (Rs.62,548 crore) so far in in the current financial year. In contrast, foreign portfolio investors have made net investments of Rs.1,06,116 crore or about $17.4 billion so far in 2014-15. MFs have gained about Rs.1.91 lakh crore since May--when Narendra Modi lead NDA assumed office. The number of demat accounts with share depositories NSDL and CDSL-an indication of how many investors trade directly in the equities have jumped by 14.4 lakh since April. Fund houses have added over 4 lakh investor accounts or folios in January alone taking the total folio count in the equity category to about 3.08 crore at the end of the month.
Equity schemes (where investments are made only in shares of companies) have seen an addition of 12.32 lakh investor accounts since April, data with market regulator SEBI showed. Assets managed by equity funds jumped to yet another record high of Rs.3.46 lakh crore in February . The MF industry's AUM advanced 1.8% month-on-month (m-o-m) to around Rs.12.02 lakh crore at the end of the month, data with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed.
Equity funds recorded net outflows of Rs.5,526 crore between April 2013 and February 2014, AMFI data showed.The category recorded net in flows of Rs.5,217 crore in February 2015, the tenth consecutive month of positive flows, on the back of positive sentiments.Balanced funds, which invest a major portion of their AUM in equity , also benefited from the uptrend in equity markets, recording inflows for the ninth consecutive month. The assets managed by gold ETFs (exchange traded funds) however dropped 5.5% m-o-m to Rs.6844 crore in February . The category recorded redemptions for the 21st consecutive month Gilt funds, which invest in government securities, attracted net inflows of Rs.2058 crore, the sixth consecutive month of positive flows. These funds have emerged among the best performers in the fixed income category as they gain the most from the fall in interest rates. Inflows and MTM gains in gilt funds resulted in 19% or Rs 2105 crore m-o-m increase in its assets to Rs.13180 crore at the end of February , the highest asset tally for the category on record. With the markets on a strong wicket, sales in equity-linked savings schemes (ELSS) have surged past the $1 billion mark (Rs.6,377 crore) so far in 2014-15.Sales in these schemes have more than trebled compared to the previous year.
ELSS products attracted investments of just Rs.1,888 crore between April 2013 and February 2014. Taxsaver MFs, as ELSS is popularly known, usually attract investor interest towards the end of the financial year. Investors rush to buy these products before the close of the financial year in a bid to ( cut down their tax outgo. In fact, sales in these schemes came at nearly $500 million (around Rs.3,000 crore) between December 2014 and February this year.
Tax-saver MFs have surged 63.2% in the last one year alone, beating key indices such as the sensex and nifty as well as the broad-based BSE 200 and BSE 500 by a wide margin. Their performance during the period almost matched diversified equity MFs. In fact, they ranked only below funds that invest in small and mid-cap stocks, infrastructure firms and banks in the performance charts during the one-year period.
The sharp rally in the markets has boosted the performance of these funds over the three-year as well as five-year time frame. Their average annual gains, besides beating inflation, are the highest among tax-saving instruments for the three-year and five-year period.
ELSS comes with a lock-in period of three years, the lowest among tax-saver instruments. These funds have given average annual returns of 25.8% over three years and 15.5% during the five-year period. Sales in the category perked up after the finance minister increased in the deduction limit from Rs 1 lakh to Rs. 1.5 lakh in the budget last year.
No comments:
Post a Comment