What's hot, what's not with mutual funds?

Mutual funds (MFs) bought huge quantity of shares of state-owned finance provider to power projects - Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), south-based India Cements and commercial vehicles maker - Ashok Leyland, while reduced exposure to nation's largest hydro power generation company - NHPC, textile manufacturing company - Alok Industries and nation's largest cigarettes manufacturer - ITC. Cement, auto, infrastructure, shipping, metal, pharma and engineering sectors dominated the top 50-buy list.

However, selling was seen in shares of banking & financial, telecom, technology, FMCG and sugar companies. Stocks were re-aligned in the power, media, oil & gas and fertilizer sectors.

In terms of value, Rural Electrification Corporation, Sterlite Industries and Cadila Healthcare were the top purchases by MFs, while ICICI Bank, Micro Inks and State Bank of India topped the selling list.

A study of the top ten mutual funds' equity portfolios as on March 31, which are Reliance, HDFC, Prudential ICICI, DSP BR, SBI, Tata, Templeton, UTI, Kotak and Birla Sun Life revealed that six out of nine funds bought shares of REC. Among these funds, Reliance MF has bought biggest quantity of shares, which was over 69 lakh shares. This stock was the top buy in terms of value as well as volume (however, it was among the top three stocks in selling list of previous month).

Top shares traded by MFs         (based on volume)
Top 5 shares bought	No. of Shares
REC	17,928,314
India Cements	10,355,553
Ashok Leyland	7,252,669
Radico Khaitan	7,123,418
Jagran Prakashan	6,070,529
Top 5 shares sold	No. of Shares
NHPC	-18,390,198
Alok Industries	-12,933,010
ITC	-6,213,185
Adani Power	-4,898,248
Balrampur Chini	-4,460,986

However, shares of India's largest two banks - ICICI Bank and SBI topped the selling list in terms of value in the month of March. Seven out of ten MFs offloaded ICICI Bank; in which Reliance MF sold the biggest lot of shares while five out of ten funds sold shares of SBI; in that ICICI Pru dumped over 9 lakh shares.

United Bank of India listed on the exchanges on March 18. Some MFs might have bought or received shares in allotment and some funds sold shares, which might have bought after listing or received shares in allotment. A share touched a high of Rs 77 on listing and closed at Rs 68.8 as against issue price of Rs 66. On April 16 while writing this article, it closed at Rs 72.65.

In the banking & financial space, fund houses bought shares of Allahabad Bank and Bajaj Finserv while sold shares of Vijaya Bank, Bank Of Baroda, Union Bank of India, IDBI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Central Bank of India, Axis Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank and HDFC Bank.

The second top bought stock was India Cements, in which three out of six funds made buying in the month of March.

Templeton MF bought over 65 lakh shares of the company. Among other cement stocks, fund houses purchased shares of Madras Cement and Ambuja Cements while reduced exposure to UltraTech Cement.