Check out the large cap stocks where FIIs cut stake in Q3

Indian stock market indices are in the midst of a bloodbath with a sharp fall in share prices after the market tested the previous all-time peak just a week ago. The top indices have lost nearly 7% value over the last one week.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), or foreign institutional investors (FIIs), had become more cautious about investing in India over the last few months. In fact, in the October-December 2021 quarter, they were net sellers in Indian equities and pulled out over $5.1 billion the process.

In the first three weeks of this year, too, they had shown their bearish sentiments apparent with net sales of securities worth $1.1 billion.

We scanned through the list of companies that have disclosed their shareholding patterns to get names where FIIs cut stake. In particular, they sold stake in as many as 67 companies that have a valuation of $1 billion or more last quarter.

In particular, they were bearish on life insurers, energy and metals, selective FMCG and retail stocks, auto and auto ancillary firms, a few banking stocks, a couple of Adani group stocks, commodities, pharma and hospital chains.

Interestingly, the Adani group stocks that faced FII sales were different from the previous quarter when another set of the group companies faced a selloff by offshore investors.

Top large caps that saw FII selling

FIIs cut stake in around 30 large caps, or companies that currently have a market capitalisation of Rs 20,000 crore or more.

Adani Green Energy, D-Mart owner Avenue Supermarts, Adani Total Gas, SBI Life Insurance, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, ICICI Prudential Life, SBI Cards, IRCTC and JSW Energy were among the top large caps that saw FIIs turn bearish.

Among others, IDBI Bank, L&T Technology, Varun Beverages, Jindal Steel & Power, Colgate-Palmolive, Indian Overseas Bank, Container Corp, Sona BLW Precision, Polycab India, Dalmia Bharat, Indraprastha Gas, Ipca Laboratories, Crompton Greaves Consumer and Aditya Birla Fashion also saw offshore investors snip their holding for the quarter ended December 31.

Lower down the order within the large caps, Laurus Labs, Dr Lal Pathlabs, General Insurance Co, Endurance Tech, Coromandel International, Indian Energy Exchange and Devyani International, too, figure in the list.

Compared to the previous quarter ended September 30, SBI Life Insurance was an outlier as the stock that has seen offshore investors dump shares for two consecutive quarters.

If we look at large cap stocks where FIIs sold 2% of more stake last quarter, we get three names: SBI Cards, IPCA Labs and IEX. In the case of the latter two, they slashed their holding by 6% or more compared to their combined holding as of September 30.