April MF Trends: Healthcare, metal sectors see rise in weights; consumer sector falls

While healthcare and metal sectors witnessed a rise in their weights in equity MFs, the consumer sector's weight hit a 38-month low in April, a report by Motilal Oswal noted.

As per the report, the healthcare sector's weight increased for the second consecutive month to 7.8 percent. The sector now ranks third in the allocation of mutual funds – it was in the fifth position a year ago.

The metal sector's weight increased for the third consecutive month to a 29-month high of 3.2 percent, MOSL observed.

The consumer sector's weight fell to 6.8 percent. As a result, the sector, which was on the third spot a year back, slipped to the sixth position in the allocation of mutual funds.

Automobile weight also moderated for the second consecutive month to reach nine-month lows of 6.2 percent, added the report.

Private banks (17.9 percent) remained the top sector holding for MFs in April 2021, followed by technology (11.1 percent), healthcare (7.8 percent), and NBFCs (7.4 percent). Real estate, consumer, cement, retail, and consumer durables saw the maximum decrease in value, MoM.

Three stocks of each in the top 10 were from healthcare and private financials. These included ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Finance, Divi’s Labs, and Dr Reddy’s Labs.

Stocks that exhibited maximum decline in value MoM were HDFC Bank, ITC, Infosys, TCS and L&T.

Domestic investors had been taking out money from equity mutual fund schemes since July 2020 and March 2021 was the first month of inflows, the SEBI data showed. These outflows were mainly due to profit-booking by investors amid a rally in stock markets.

MFs had invested over Rs 40,200 crore in the first five months (January-May) of 2020. Of this, Rs 30,285 crore was invested in March 2020.

Meanwhile, mutual funds put in nearly Rs 21,600 crore in debt markets in the month under review. Hybrid funds saw inflows worth Rs 8,641 crore and liquid funds saw inflows of Rs 41,507 crore.

SIP flows witnessed a cut in April to Rs 8,590 crore from Rs 9,182 crore in March.