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FIIs infuse Rs 639 crore in April; sell-off likely in coming days

Overseas investors have poured in Rs 639 crore into Indian equities during the first week of the current fiscal, but experts fear a possible sell-off in the coming days amid political and economic worries.

From April 2-5, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were gross buyers of shares worth Rs 14,378 crore, while they sold equities amounting to Rs 13,739 crore -- a net investment of Rs 639 crore ($118 million), as per Sebi data.

The net inflow is despite the fact that FIIs sold equities in 3 of the 4 days.

Market experts believe however that the stock market would see heavy outflows in the next few trading sessions because of profit booking, amid concerns over high current account deficit (CAD) possibility of early elections.

"We could see huge FIIs outflows from the stock market in the next few trading session," CNI Research CMD, Kishor Ostwal said.

Similarly, Alex Mathews, head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd, said: "Foreign investors are expected to pull out from the Indian stock market in the next few trading sessions.

"Although, we have witnessed net inflows during the month, in the last few trading sessions, FIIs have pulled out from equities because of factors such as profit booking, CAD touching a record high and political uncertainty."

As for the debt market, FIIs have pulled out Rs 629 crore during the period. This takes the overall net investments by FIIs into debt markets to Rs 12,115 crore ($2.24 billion) so far this year.

During this period, FIIs have invested Rs 56,262 crore ($10.4 billion) into the Indian equities, after investing $24.4 billion in 2012, about $5 billion below record purchases two years ago.

As on April 5, the number of registered FIIs in the country stood at 1,759 and total number of sub-accounts was 6,354.