SIPs, slumps and the AMC machine

Akshara· Host0:04

In today's episode, we'll break down two important stories. First, we'll talk about Q4 at the AMC business, and then we'll talk about the double-edged sword of India's digital financial inclusion. Welcome back to The Daily Brief by Zerodha, where we cut through the noise to help you understand what's actually happening in the most important stories from business and markets. I'm your host, Akshara. Today is Wednesday, 29th April. Coming to the first story. So the Nifty 50 fell roughly 14.5% between January and March this year, its worst quarter in two years. The same three months, the Indian mutual fund industry took in more equity money than ever before. Their net equity inflows for the quarter touched rupees 1.24 trillion, the highest on record. In March alone, systematic investment plans, or SIPs, brought in an all-time monthly high of rupees 32,087 crore. Now, this is not supposed to happen. Retail money is supposed to flee a falling market, but it didn't. So what then is happening? For answers, we're looking at the results of three asset managers. We look at India's largest AMC by size, ICICI Prudential AMC, which crossed rupees 11 lakh crore in average assets this quarter. We also look at HDFC AMC, the AMC with the cleanest margins in the industry, as close to a gold standard as the industry has. And finally, we look at the champion PSU, UTI AMC, which is the oldest of the three and the only one without