MF data: Experts say underlying investor behaviour changing

When asked what was his initial sense on flows that have come in except in debt and whether he noticed anything on maybe the passive front or the hybrid category, Mohanty, said no. “We have seen the month dominated by DP Singh and his team, so all credit to them for the huge collection and taking the hybrid figures into a different orbit altogether. But redemptions in the market in equity definitely up compared to July. If my figures are right, then it is down to Rs 8000 crores positive in the active segment. And compare that to Rs 11,500 crores positive in the ETF segment, you are seeing a definite change in investment behaviour, no doubt about it. So, it is not active versus passive, but it is the birth of passive,” said Mohanty.

Moreover, there are more choices to the investor and that is playing out, If you see the broad numbers is Rs 8600 crore on active diversified equity Rs 18,000 crores in hybrid thanks to the great NFO of SBI and then the staggering figure of Rs 11,591 crore, net positive in index and ETFs. So it's just showing that the underlying investor behaviour is changing, said Mohanty.

“On the debt side, because there was a lot of money which had come into the corporate bond fund and the bank PSU in the broad feedback from the market to go short in their investments, I don't know why but I don't agree with that and you're seeing a fair amount of money in the floater side. I would definitely urge investors to stick to their asset allocation on the debt side and leave the worrying to the fund manager. They do that on the equity side, but we are not seeing that in a very relevant manner on the debt side,” advised Mohanty.

When asked whether he agreed that a lot of these debt plus investors are perhaps moving in mass to hybrid categories or even passives for that matter, Singh said he agreed with that.