Retail holdings in listed firms clock new record in June qtr

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The aggregate holdings of retail investors in stocks listed on the National Stock Exchange rose to a record high of ₹22.1 trillion as of June 2023, a Mint analysis of data sourced from primeinfobase.com showed. The analysis covered 1,910 companies that had retail shareholders as of 30 June 2023 and whose latest data is available. The value of retail holdings in these companies has risen nearly 15% since 31 March, while it has jumped 23% from a year ago.

However, as a share of the total stock value, the aggregate retail ownership remained flat at around 7.53% since March 2023, and inched up just 8 basis points (bps) in the last one year. In terms of ownership by the number of shares, the proportion declined sequentially by 18 bps and 57 bps, year-on-year, to 11.2%. The data refers to individual investors with investments up to ₹2 lakh.

Indian retail investors have evolved over the last few years. “There has been a structural shift—domestic investors, both institutional and individual put together, now have more stakes than the foreign institutional investors," said Pranav Haldea, managing director, PRIME Database Group. Retail holdings have risen against the backdrop of strong market returns.

In the June quarter, the benchmark index Sensex saw the sharpest quarterly return of 9.7% since September 2021. Meanwhile, the relentless rally in the small-cap space, whose index gained 21% during the quarter, led to a steep rise of 28.4% in the value of retail ownership in this segment on a sequential basis, followed by a 20% and 12% rise in the mid cap and large cap space, respectively, the Mint analysis showed. Individual investors’ ownership in small-cap stocks in value terms marginally rose from 15.3% in March 2023