Equity MF inflows slump in April amid pandemic

Net inflows slid to ₹3,437 cr. last month

MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, 24/06/2016: “Black Friday” The giant screen in front of the Bombay Stock Exchange broadcast the press conference addressed by the British Prime Minister David Cameron to the nation outside 10 Downing Street on June 24, 2016 to announce that he would be stepping down. His decision had come after Britain voted to leave the European Union, which secured 52 per cent of the total vote. As an effect, the Global equity and currency markets crashed and the benchmark 30-share Sensex lost more than 800 points in the early morning session falling below the 27,000 mark. As many as 29 of the 30 Sensex stocks were trading in the red. The market sentiment could be gauged from the fact that more than 1,500 stocks were trading in the red as against only 131 gainers on the BSE. Eventually, the day has been marked as “Black Friday”. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Equity mutual funds (MFs) witnessed a net inflow of ₹3,437 crore in April, making it the second consecutive monthly infusion but lower than the amount recorded in March amid the second COVID-19 wave.

The quantum is much lower than the inflow of ₹9,115 crore recorded in March, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI).

Equity schemes had witnessed outflows for eight straight months from July 2020 to February 2021.

“With the second wave putting pressure on citizens to hold a higher emergency corpus for medical needs, investor interest is a tad down and can be expected to recover in the waning phase of this health scare,” Gopal Kavalireddi, head of research at FYERS, said.

“The start to fiscal 2021-22 has been quite positive with MF industry average assets under management at an all-time high of ₹32.42 lakh crore owing to positive flows in all open-ended categories and robust SIP contribution in April at ₹8,591 crore,” said N. S. Venkatesh, CEO, AMFI. (With inputs from Lalatendu Mishra)