PMSes fall victim to March madness, drop 3-41% amid COVID-19, FII sellout

Of the 147 PMSes that reported their returns, 62 outperformed the Nifty during the month.

Suyash Maheshwari

April 10, 2020 / 10:56 IST

26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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The month of March was a nightmare for Indian markets, with the benchmarks Nifty and Sensex dropping 23 percent each, dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic and FII sellout.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pulled out more than Rs 60,000 crore from the cash segment of the equity market, shaving off Rs 30 lakh crore of investors' wealth in March alone.

The Portfolio Management Services (PMSes) suffered a similar fate, falling 3-41 percent during the month.

Of the 147 PMSes that reported their returns, 62 outperformed the Nifty.
First Global India Multi Asset Fund was the best performer in the club, falling the least -- 3 percent-- month-on-month, data collated by PMS AIF World, a research-backed financial services firm, shows.

Five of the 10 best performing PMSes in March were multi-cap focused.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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