FPI ownership in domestic equities falls to 19.5%, lowest since Mar '19

Mumbai: Foreign funds' ownership in domestic equities fell to pre-Covid lows and hit a multi-year low of 19.5 per cent in March this year in NSE500 companies valued at $619 billion, shows an analysis.

At 19.5 per cent the FPI ownership in March 2022, is the lowest in the past three years, when it was 19.3 per cent in March in 2019, which was a pre-Covid period.

On a year-on-year basis their ownership stood at 21.2 per cent, second highest on record in March 2021, according to a report by the Wall Street brokerage Bank of America Securities India.

Foreign funds' ownership in the domestic equities was at 18.6 per cent in December 2017, the lowest in five years, and the peak was in December 2021, when they owned 21.4 per cent of domestic equities.

Significantly, the share loss of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) has been well corrected by the steeply rising ownership of the stocks by domestic funds, who pumped in $6 billion in March and $14.6 billion in FY22, the report said.