The topmost traded stocks by mutual funds in September are as follows -
SBI MF - Ironically SBI MF with an AUM (asset under management) over Rs.425000 cr sold around 42 million shares of its parent
SBI recently. The other stocks it sold in September included 29 million shares of BHEL, 15 million shares of ZEE and 14 million shares of Bharti Infratel. These last two stocks also got removed from the benchmark indices. Among the stocks bought by SBI MF, NHPC led the way with close to 1.5 crore shares. The others bought in smaller quantities included Chola Investments, Bharti Airtel, NTPC, CUB, ONGC, Bharat Force, Avenue Supermarts and Triveni Turbines. It also built new positions in select stocks like Bata India, Hexaware, Redington and Zydus.Among the IPO segment, SBI bought positions in Route Mobile, Happiest Minds and CAMS in September 2020.
HDFC MF - After SBI MF, HDFC MF was one of the most active in the market in September 2020. It added Bharti Airtel, HCL Technologies, TCS, HDFC Bank, and Bosch to its existing portfolio. During its portfolio shifts, it indicated a preference for IT over financials by being a big seller in counters like ICICI Bank, SBI cards and buying tech stocks like HCL Tech worth Rs.243 crore as well as infusing Rs.126 crore into TCS.
ICICI Pru MF - ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund which is the third-largest fund by AUM also added TCS to its portfolio in September. It also increased its positions in Bharti Airtel, HDFC, ITC, Zydus Wellness and added close to Rs.300 crore into TCS alone.
Aditya Birla Sun Life MF - Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund bought shares worth Rs.245 crore of Mindtree, Rs.175 crore of Tech Mahindra and Rs.149 crore of TCS in September 2020. It also showed an intensive selling streak in banking
stocks and heavily sold counters like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank and HDFC Bank. In fact, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were on a sell list of most
funds last month.
Axis MF - Similar to Aditya Birla MF, Axis MF piled up on IT stocks with Wipro and TCS being among its big purchases in September. It bought TCS worth Rs.293 crore and Wipro worth Rs.253 crore. Axis MF also added stocks of Essel Propack and PI Industries to its portfolio. One another notable stock added by Axis MF was Dr Reddy’s Labs which is conducting Phase-3 trials for the Russian Sputnik vaccine.