In the January-March quarter, when there was panic and uncertainty over a recession in the US, the Adani saga, retail investors were undeterred, investing a total of $2.3 billion in equities, reversing trends from the previous two quarters.

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It boils down to this — retail investors sold in the July-September, October-December quarters and bought back heavily in the January-March quarter.

In the fourth quarter, large buying was witnessed in large-cap names. Largely, retail investors have bought large-caps and not mid-cap and small-cap, if the current rally is any indicator. .

What have retail investors done in Q4?

In terms of large buying, among the large-cap names, retail investors have invested in Adani group stocks. Reliance too was a big addition in terms of retail participation, State Bank of India (SBI) was another large stock in which the retailers pumped in money, as was Ambuja Cement, which is a part of the Adani Group.

What they've sold, again, appears to be part of a smart-selling strategy — retail investors have sold HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, ITC, and technology stocks, which includes Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tech Mahindra.

One should look at all three categories of investors in that quarter — foreign institutional investors' (FIIs) positioning changed in Q4; they added Adani Group stocks which was largely due to the GQG investment in around March. Investors also bought into Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Tata Motors, and ITC.

During the same period, FIIs have sold Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), and sold Infosys, ICICI Bank, and HDFC. They have also sold Kotak Mahindra Bank stock, which has been a big underperformer and they've also sold Bharti Airtel stock to some extent.

While FIIs have been selling Reliance, domestic mutual funds have been loading into the stock, as well as Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC, Infosys, and ICICI Bank.

And in the same quarter, DIIs have sold Adani Group stocks, Vedanta, ITC, and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL).

During the quarter, Adani Group stocks, Reliance, SBI, and HDFC, to name a few, were the names retail investors have bought equities in. At the same time, they've sold HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, tech stocks, and ITC.

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