Mutual funds made buy calls on these mid-cap stocks last quarter. Do you own any?

Indian stock indices had corrected sharply a month ago but have gained back some of the lost ground in the last one week. While most local fund managers have been voicing concerns about the state of valuations, quarterly shareholding data shows they pushed up their holding in hundreds of listed companies.

In particular, MFs hiked stake in as many as 118 companies that have a valuation of $1 billion or more last quarter. This compares with 108 companies in the quarter ended December 31, 2021 and 129 companies in the preceding quarter ended September.

Out of the larger set of companies where MFs hiked their stake, there were 69 mid-caps. This compares with 78 companies in which MFs pushed up their holding in the quarter ended December 31 and and 67 firms in the previous three months.

In contrast, MFs hiked stake in 80 large-cap companies during January-March, compared with 58 large caps in the three months ended December 31 and 74 such companies in the quarter ended September 30.

MFs also cut their stake in 65 mid-caps, or stocks with market value in the Rs 5,000-20,000 crore bracket. This was much higher than 58 mid-cap companies where MFs cut their holding in the preceding quarter and even more compared to 46 such stocks where they sold shares in the quarter ended September 30.

This means MFs turned more bearish towards mid-caps compared to larger companies during January-March.

Top mid-caps that saw MF buying

If we look at the pack of mid-caps with market cap between Rs 5,000-20,000 crore, then MFs pushed up their stake in Navin Fluorine, Federal Bank, Fortis Healthcare, JK Cement, Prestige Estates, Indian Energy Exchange, Kajaria Ceramics, CreditAccess Grameen, Godrej Industries and Metro Brands.

Among others Bharat Dynamics, Gujarat State Petronet, GR Infraprojects, Carborundum Universal, IRB Infrastructure, Suven Pharma, Angel One, J B Chemicals, Ratnamani Metals, Motilal Oswal, Cholamandalam Financial, CAMS, Nuvoco Vistas, Radico Khaitan, Medplus Health, Birlasoft, V-Guard and Hindustan Copper too saw MF buying activity.

Navin Fluorine, Indian Bank, Prestige Estates, Gujarat State Petronet, G R Infraprojects, Nuvoco Vistas, Motilal Oswal, J B Chemicals and CreditAccess were mid-caps where MFs bought additional stake in the last two quarters running.

If we take a peek at mid-caps where mutual funds picked 2% or more additional stake last quarter, we get a list of 13 stocks compared to just six stocks in the three months ended December 31.

This pack has names like IDFC, Metropolis Healthcare, Equitas Small Finance Bank, Go Fashion, Kajaria Ceramics, Multi Commodity Exchange, Kalpataru Power, TeamLease, Balrampur Chini, Navin Fluorine, GR Infraprojects, Can Fin Homes and Avanti Feeds.