Retail investors sold Rs 8,000 crore shares in December quarter

Cashing in on the runaway boom, retail investors have sold shares worth Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion) in the quarter ended December 2003.

Cashing out
(Public shareholding in per cent)	Quarter ended
	Sep-03	Dec-03	Chg
ACC	35.35	25.55	-9.80
Bajaj Auto	29.56	28.71	-0.85
Bharti Tele-Vent	0.95	1.09	0.14
BHEL	1.10	1.02	-0.08
BSES	10.01	8.29	-1.72
Cipla	28.33	27.31	-1.02
Dr Reddy's Labs	12.88	12.15	-0.73
Grasim Ind	18.59	17.13	-1.46
Guj Ambuja Cem	14.93	13.98	-0.95
HDFC	14.27	13.73	-0.54
HDFC Bank	16.51	15.62	-0.89
Hero Honda	12.09	11.45	-0.64
Hindalco	13.72	12.90	-0.82
Hindustan Lever	20.78	20.31	-0.47
HPCL	8.32	7.70	-0.62
ICICI Bank	8.38	7.76	-0.62
Infosys Techno	9.43	9.00	-0.43
ITC	13.41	12.93	-0.48
Larsen & Toubro	26.52	23.62	-2.9
MTNL	2.32	2.32	0.00
ONGC	1.21	1.14	-0.07
Ranbaxy Labs	19.62	18.96	-0.66
Reliance Ind	15.44	14.04	-1.40
Satyam Computer	7.50	4.82	-2.68
SBI	7.42	7.06	-0.36
Tata Motors	14.77	14.08	-0.69
Tata Power	28.41	26.78	-1.63
Tata Steel	31.46	28.92	-2.54
Wipro	6.92	6.68	-0.24
Zee Telefilms	7.51	5.92	-1.59

Retail selling has gathered momentum in the last quarter; in the previous quarter, these investors--which includes non-promoter, non-institutional investors -- had sold only Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) worth of equity.

The shareholding data of 506 companies, compiled by the BS Research Bureau from the shareholding pattern posted on the websites of stock exchanges, show these investors have sold almost 370 million shares in the quarter.

Smartly, these investors have switched their investment preferences, cashing in on stocks that have gained and investing in low-priced stories.

Retail investors bought 226 million shares of low-value stock worth only Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion). It also means these investors took home almost Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) in one quarter.

With the index stocks posting an impressive performance during the quarter ended December 2003, retail investors sold 106 million BSE Sensex shares valued at Rs 4,789 crore (Rs 47.89 billion).

The only exceptions are MTNL, where investors held on to holdings, and Bharti Tele-Ventures, where they added 2.59 million shares in the quarter.

Sensex heavyweight Reliance Industries was top on the retail investors' selling list, with 19.51 million shares valued at Rs 1,118 crore (Rs 11.18 billion) sold.

They sold 16.72 million shares of ACC for Rs 411 crore (Rs 4.11 billion), 9.37 million shares of Tata Steel for Rs 416 crore (Rs 4.16 billion), 7.22 million shares of Larsen & Toubro for Rs 381 crore (Rs 3.81 billion) and 8.36 million shares of Satyam Computer for Rs 307 crore (Rs 3.07 billion).

An analysis of the sector trends shows that retail investors have pressed heavy sales in banking, cement, technology, oil and shipping scrips.

Retail investors sold 40 million bank shares worth Rs 690 crore (Rs 6.9 billion), 31 million shares of diversified companies worth Rs 1,383 crore (Rs 13.83 billion), 26 million shares of cement companies worth Rs 463 crore (Rs 4.63 billion), 38 million shares of technology companies valued at Rs 993 crore (Rs 9.93 billion), 14 million refinery stocks valued at Rs 278 crore (Rs 2.78 billion) and 5 million shares of shipping companies valued at Rs 172 crore (Rs 1.72 billion).