Foreign portfolio investors stayed net sellers of Indian equities for the seventh consecutive session on Monday as the Nifty and Sensex began the week in the red after four weeks of loss amid the deepening Iran-US crisis. The FPIs sold shares worth Rs 6,345.57 crore worth of stocks. So far in March, they sold equity worth Rs 27,349 crore, according to data on NSDL.
However, domestic institutional investors stayed net buyers for the ninth day as they bought shares worth Rs 9,014 crore.
Last week, the FIIs have sold shares worth Rs 21,832 crore while the DIIs have bought equity worth Rs 32,787 crore.
In the week before that, FPIs offloaded total stake worth Rs 4,629 crore. During that week, the FPIs bought equity for two of the five sessions. The spike in FPI buying had come after the fine print of the India-US trade deal emerged two weeks ago, which showed several export-oriented Indian sectors benefiting. However, the selloff was triggered by the escalating crisis in the Middle East.
The FPIs have sold shares worth Rs 35,962 crore in January. On the other hand, FPIs in February have bought stake worth Rs 22,615 crore, aided by improving risk sentiment in the geoeconomic space. With the current crisis in perspective the FPIs have turned net sellers again this month.
In 2026 so far, the FPIs have net sold equities worth Rs 40,696 crore. In the three-month period ended Dec. 31, 2025, DIIs held about 24.8% of holdings in Nifty 50 stocks, whereas the FPI ownership declined to 24.3%.
Market Recap
Indian equity benchmarks ended Monday's session off their intraday lows after crude oil prices retreated sharply from earlier highs, easing some pressure on global markets. The Nifty 50 closed 1.74% lower near the 24,000 mark, while the Sensex ended nearly 1,400 points lower around 77,500 after a volatile trading session.
Both indices had fallen much more sharply earlier in the day as the surge in oil prices and global market weakness triggered risk aversion among investors. The Sensex had dropped as much as 2,994 points, or 3.2%, to an intraday low of 76,424.55, while the Nifty declined as much as 3.1% to 23,597 before recovering part of the losses. The selloff had pushed both benchmark indices into correction territory earlier in the session, with the Nifty falling more than 10% from its record high and the Sensex declining about 11% from its peak.
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