BFSI stocks: They shed weight much before others do, time to be contrarian and buy?

BFSI stocks: They shed weight much before others do, time to be contrarian and buy?
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Synopsis

The kind of correction the broader market is witnessing in the last few days, the financial services sector had seen that few months ago. Infact, if one looks at the overall picture this phase of correction was led by one private sector bank and the other parts of the BFSI came under pressure at the start of 2024. For two reasons, first is that RBI has been doing a policy tightening and regulatory cleanup excerise, so there were some margin hits coming in earnings. Second, they are heavily owned by foreign portfolio investors who have been sellers in the Indian markets. A large number of times they give an advance indication of what the broader market might look like in near term. Similarly, the other way round, these stocks on a relative basis have performed better than others in the last few days. The first streak of relative outperformance is good enough indication for them to be brought on watchlist.

One of the reasons why private sector banks and other financial services sectors have been going through consolidation and correction has been the fact that they were over owned by FPI. In the last two years, there has been a good amount of selling by FPI and they will sell what they own the most. Over a period of time, a part of this selling has been absorbed by the ETF, both domestic and index funds which are based on Indian stocks. Some

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