Foreign investors net buyers of Indian equities in first week of October

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs/FPIs) were net buyers of Indian equities in the first five days of trading in October, in contrast to domestic institutional investors (DIIs).

During the week ended October 7, FIIs purchased stocks worth Rs 19,537 crore and disposed off equities worth Rs 17,851 crore, resulting in a net-buy position of Rs 1,686 crore. On Friday, they were net buyers of Indian equities worth Rs 56 crore.

On the same day, DIIs bought and sold stocks worth Rs 2,566 crore and Rs 1,839 crore, respectively, creating a net-buy position of Rs 726 crore, according to provisional data available with the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

However, in the previous trading days of the week, DIIs were net sellers. 

During the first four months (April-July) of the current fiscal, 1,000 new FPIs registered with capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in comparison to 2,900 FPIs in 2015-16, reported PTI. At the end of July this year, there were 5,322 FPIs registered with Sebi.

The BSE Sensex closed 45 points lower at 28,061, while the NSE Nifty ended at 8,698, down 12 points, on Friday.

The Indian rupee gained 2 paise to end at 66.68 to the US dollar on Friday. The week saw the newly-formed Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) deciding on the repo rate for the first time, a paradigm shift from the practice of the central bank governor taking decisions, after factoring in data from various sources.

The MPC reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 6.25 percent, a six-year-low.

The week also saw the five-day spectrum auction coming to an end on Thursday. The auction yielded Rs 65,789 crore (about $9.9 billion) to the Central government in bids, of which 50 percent, or approximately Rs 32,000 crore will be paid as upfront amount by telecom operators to the government this fiscal.

It markes a shortfall of about Rs 24,000 crore when compared to the Rs 56,500 crore estimated by the Narendra Modi government in the current year's budget.

The high reserve price of Rs 11,785 crore for the 700 MHz band saw no takers, resulting in the shortfall. 

Vodafone was the top spender, buying spectrum worth $3.3 billion, followed by Bharti Airtel ($2.13 billion) and Idea Cellular ($1.92 billion), reported Reuters.