An unlikely trio that has captivated retail investors
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. What do a state-run power behemoth, a humble penny stock, and a Maharatna enterprise have in common? These stocks are among a handful that have not only attracted retail investors in hordes in 2024 so far, but have also outdone themselves on this metric in each successive quarter. Leading this unlikely trio was NTPC Ltd, which added about 1.7 million new individual investors in the September quarter, thanks to its strong growth and green energy ambitions.
That’s the highest number of investors added by any BSE-listed stock during the quarter. In the December 2023 quarter, the state-owned power company had added about 91,000 new retail investors, and the number has grown in each quarter since then. NTPC was closely followed by telecom tower company GTL Infrastructure Ltd, a penny stock that added about 900,000 individual investors in the September quarter as it outpaced both the Nifty and Sensex this year.
The benchmark indices reached their year’s peak in September but have since shed some of their gains. The September quarter’s other top three investor bets were the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, Rama Steel Tubes, and Bank of Baroda. ONGC’s retail investor count jumped by about 622,000 in the September quarter, Rama Steel’s by about 570,000, and BoB’s by about 286,000.
These five stocks led the way among only 323 stocks that registered a consistent pick-up in growth in their retail investor base over the past four quarters. This means that they added more new investors in each quarter than they did in the previous one. The analysis covered 3,806 BSE-listed stocks whose latest shareholding data was available with Capitaline.
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