Mutual Fund Managers’ Top Five Preferred Industries

Investing in Mutual Fund is one of the top investment options among Indian investors. The various registered asset management companies facilitate investors with investment options either in equity or debt funds and they also provide management of their invested fund. A mutual fund takes the pool of funds from large number of investors and deploys them across various stocks. Association of Mutual Fund in India (AMFI), registered with SEBI, monitors and maintains the assets under management with the mutual fund houses in India. AMFI releases the data for funds deployment for every month in the calendar year. So, in perspective to throw some light on this, we have listed the top five sectors which have seen highest investment in the first three months of current calendar year.

Banks : As per the data available by AMFI, the maximum funds have been invested into the banking sector by various mutual fund houses, in the first three months of the current calendar year. Out of the total asset under management (AUM), January month 2014 has seen 16.6% (Rs 30339 crore) of fund deployment. Also, the investment in this sector had shown a trend of continuous increase in the percentage from January to the month of March for CY14. The fund deployment in the month of March has reached 19.76% to Rs 40293 crore.

Software : Software is the second sector among others, in which 15.2% of investment which accounts to Rs 27772 crore has been made out of the total mutual fund investment in equity for January 2014. Further, Rs 28784 crore has been allotted to the sector. For the month of March 2014, the fund deployment in software sector was Rs 24315 crore.

Pharmaceuticals : Pharmaceutical sector which has shown a decent growth in the past couple of quarters, came at third position among the five sectors. In January 2014, Rs 16308 crore has been invested in the sector. This amount increased to Rs 17534.5 crore, about 9% of the total equity investment in the month of February 2014. In March 2014, Rs 16066 crore allotted to the sector.

Consumer Non-Durables : Consumer non-durables, which includes fast moving consumer goods, is the sector which stood at the fourth position among the top five sectors which has seen the highest investment in the months of January, February and March 2014. Though the sector, has been facing disappoints on volume growth front from the past three-four months, the FMCG companies had been able to maintain their margins. On the funds deployment front, Rs 13241 crore was invested in January followed by Rs 12855 crore and Rs 12947 crore in the months of February and March respectively for CY14.

Petroleum Products : Most of the petroleum product segment stocks has shown decent gain in its stock prices in the month of March for CY14. In January and February month, Rs 9591 crore and Rs 9655 crore was invested in the sector. The fund deployment in March month CY14 is Rs 10909 crore, which stood at 5.35% of the total AUM in the month.