Mumbai: Equity mutual funds (MFs) saw net inflows of Rs 39,687.78 crore in January even as the domestic stock market continued its downward trend, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) on Wednesday.
This comes after December saw a strong 14.5 per cent jump in inflows to Rs 41,155.91 crore.
Despite the marginal decline, inflows into open-ended equity funds remained positive for the 47th consecutive month.
The dip in inflows coincided with a weak performance in the stock market, as the BSE Sensex fell by 1.28 per cent and the Nifty dropped 0.99 per cent in January.
“Domestic investors continued with their investment spree into the equity oriented mutual funds in the month of January, taking correction in the market as an opportunity to build their exposure further. This logged the 47th consecutive month of net inflows into the segment,” according to Himanshu Srivastava from Morningstar Investment Research India.
He added that it’s pleasing to see more and more investors using mutual funds route to enter into the equity markets because of the obvious benefit that mutual fund offers.
Among different equity fund categories, small-cap funds saw strong inflows, rising by 22.6 per cent to Rs 5,720.87 crore.
Mid-cap funds also witnessed a slight increase by attracting Rs 5,147.87 crore in investments.
Large-cap funds experienced a significant boost, with inflows surging 52.3 per cent to Rs 3,063.33 crore.
On the other hand, sectoral and thematic funds saw a steep decline in investments, dropping by 41.2 per cent to Rs 9,016.60 crore.
This was mainly due to fewer new fund offers being launched during the month. In January, mutual funds raised Rs 2,838 crore through three sectoral/thematic funds.
Meanwhile, debt mutual funds saw a major turnaround, recording net inflows of Rs 1,28,652.58 crore in January, compared to massive outflows of Rs 1,27,152.63 crore in December.
The liquid fund category led the inflows with Rs 91,592.92 crore, followed by money market funds, which received Rs 21,915.53 crore.
However, short-duration funds and gilt funds witnessed outflows of Rs 2,066.19 crore and Rs 1,359.66 crore, respectively.
Overall, open-ended mutual funds recorded net inflows of Rs 1,87,606.23 crore in January, a sharp contrast to the net outflows of Rs 80,509.20 crore seen in December.