Morningstar India Fund Portfolio Scanner - Quarter ended September 2013
With interest rates hardening, equity fund's exposure to financial services sector dropped. However with sharp depreciation in Indian Rupee, equity funds have increased exposure to the technology sector quite significantly during the quarter ended September.
We are happy to announce the launch of new quarterly report titled “Morningstar India Fund Portfolio Scanner”. The report analyses holdings of mutual fund portfolios and highlights key trends observed during the quarter, at an industry level. You can read the ‘About the Report’ section in the beginning of the report to know more about the various sections, as well as fund categories covered. Please click here to view the entire report. Here are some key takeaways from the report.
- With interest rates hardening, exposure to financial services sector dropped from 26% at the end of the June quarter to 21% in this quarter, in portfolios of equity funds.
- Equity mutual funds sold shares of State Bank of India quite heavily during the quarter and the stock price also fell by more than 17%. As a result, the value of SBI shares held in fund portfolios dropped by almost half during this period, and a large number of funds completely exited the stock. However, stocks like HDFC Bank and HDFC witnessed net buying by fund managers during the quarter.
- Equity funds have increased exposure to the technology sector quite significantly, from 11.70% at the end of previous quarter, to 15.44% at the end of this quarter. Infosys gained favour as the most popular stock at the end of the quarter, edging out ICICI Bank.
- Telecom giant Bharti Airtel was the most bought stock during the quarter.
- JP Associates was the most sold stock during the quarter, and rightly so the share price saw a steep fall in its price.
- Diversified equity mutual funds have steadily increased exposure to large-cap stocks and reduced exposure to mid-cap stocks over the past few quarters. Small/mid-cap equity funds have especially increased their cash holding, from an average of 3.73% at the end of 2012 to an average of 7.39% at the end of this quarter.
- Bond fund managers toned down average maturity or duration in the months of June and July, with bond yields hardening substantially. However, fund managers increased duration in the month of August, and maintained similar levels of duration at the end of September as well.
- Interestingly, bond fund managers increased allocation to government securities during the September quarter. Morningstar data shows that average exposure to government securities in portfolios of medium & long-term bond funds went up from 32.41% in June 2013 to 38.65% in September 2013.
