D-Street Correction May Not Be A Bad Sign

\nThe benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex had taken a vertical trajectory over the last few months with the economy slowly coming out of the woods. A look at the trend of institutional participants in the bourses gives some insight on what is behind the correction.\nThe domestic asset managers have clearly taken a cautious stand much before the correction started, post Diwali. This is even as overseas liquidity is yet to see any cutback with foreign institutional investiors (FIIs) continuing to pour money although not as aggressively as they did in the past.\nMutual Funds (MF) have been net sellers in the equity market in 14 out of 16 trading days in October. In contrast, the FIIs have been net sellers in just 5 out of 16 trading days.\nThe MFs have sold equity assets worth Rs 16,234 crore against buys worth Rs 10,779 crore and have thus encashed around Rs 5,454 crore ($1.2 billion) from the bourses till date this month. As compared to this, FIIs have brought fresh cash of Rs 2,000 crore ($430 million).\nBoth MFs and FIIs have brought fresh money into debt market with the former pumping in an additional Rs 28,828 crore ($6.2 billion) and FIIs investing Rs 1,612 crore more.\nGiven the bearish stance of domestic institutions, FIIs have also pressed brakes having been net sellers between October 22 and October 26. But they invested fresh cash on Tuesday and the direction of the markets could be determined by their fresh call over bringing in more money at these levels or waiting for some more correction.\nCorporate profits have largely been on the upper side as against expectations of analysts for the quarter ended September and this could be a positive for the markets going forward. This is even as new macro factors such as impending rise in interest rates could play their part.