Three of the top four stocks held by mutual funds in India are bank stocks – ICICI Bank Ltd, HDFC Bank Ltd and State Bank of India, with Infosys Ltd being the sole exception.
ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were the top holdings, with ICICI alone accounting for about Rs 14,300 crore, or about 5% of the value of all mutual fund equity holdings in India.
Reliance Industries was in the sixth position, behind Larsen and Toubro, which occupied the fifth place.
TCS, which is considered a better company than Infosys, was however, far behind the Bangalore-based company when it came to attracting mutual fund investments, according to a chart prepared by East India Securities.
While Infosys was at number 3 with nearly 11,163 cr worth of shares held by MFs, TCS was at number 9 with just 4,733 cr worth of shares being held by Indian funds.
The reason seems to be the high valuations of TCS’s stock compared to the company’s profits. In addition, analysts seem to be betting on a turnaround at Infosys under Vishal Sikka, the company’s new CEO.
Maruti Suzuki and ITC were the only consumer brands, other than banks, in the top 10 holdings.
The total value of the shares held by MFs in India was Rs 2.92 lakh crore (2.92 trillion), out of which nearly half (1.47 trillion) was in large-cap stocks.
DIVIS LABS SHINES
Among mid-caps, Divis Laboratories Ltd and The Federal Bank Ltd were the top favorites. Nearly 3,023 cr worth of Divis Labs shares were being held by MFs at the end of October, according to the calculations by East India Securities. Even among large-caps, only 16 stocks had a larger presence in mutual fund holdings in India.
Cummins India, Crompton Greaves Ltd, Yes Bank Ltd, Oil India Ltd and Motherson Sumi were among other big mid-cap holdings.
Telecom seemed to have lost much of its appeal for local mutual funds, with Bharti Airtel shares accounting for only 3,814 cr of holdings, while Idea Cellular shares accounted for just 715 cr. RCom shares accounted for just Rs 225 cr.