Indian retail investors, who have been active buyers in recent times, have become net sellers in September. The sell-off, amounting to shares worth ₹7,500 crore, is the largest since March and the first in six months.

What Happened: As per a Moneycontrol report, the sell-off by retail investors coincides with the Indian markets reaching record highs. Both foreign and domestic institutional investors, on the other hand, have been purchasing shares in large volumes.

In September alone, retail investors sold shares worth over ₹7,500 crore, while domestic investors bought shares worth around ₹17,421 crore and foreign investors bought shares worth ₹55,855 crore.

In July and August, the retail investors bought ₹8,306 crore and ₹14,235 crore worth of shares. The previous time when they were net sellers was in March, when they offloaded ₹8,862 crore shows NSE data.

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Analysts believe that this sell-off is due to profit booking and the flurry of public issues, prompting many small investors to book profits to invest in initial public offers (IPOs). Retail investors have also been offloading newly-listed IPO stocks, even those that debuted with substantial listing gains.

In September, 13 companies launched their IPOs with the cumulative size pegged at ₹11,890 crore. Out of these, only one IPO listed in negative territory, while three saw marginal gains over their issue price. The remaining nine IPOs listed with gains ranging between 18% and 135%.

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