Foreign investors sold Indian stocks worth Rs 152 crore every trading hour in 2025

Foreign investors are selling Indian stocks at a pace never seen before in Indian markets. By now in 2025, FIIs will make every trading hour around Rs. Equity has been dumped at the rate of 152 crores. However, this entire shock was absorbed by domestic institutional investors armed with continuous SIP flows.

FIIs this year through the secondary market have raised Rs. Sold over 2.23 lakh crore worth of Indian equities. Spread across the entire trading calendar, each of these trading days will cost around Rs. 900 crore net sales, or Rs. 152 crores. Despite this relentless selling pressure, benchmark indices have remained resilient.

December has continued the trend. FIIs have been sellers on all trading days so far this month, with exchanges trading at Rs. 15,959 crores have been sold. However, domestic institutional investors during this period contributed around Rs. 39,965 crore worth of shares were bought.

The sharp divergence reflects the ongoing structural change in the Indian markets. A key pillar of this resilience is the steady flow of retail investors into mutual funds, particularly through systematic investment schemes. But the question is how long they can sell, especially when growth prospects look strong and earnings are likely to improve.

According to VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments, SIP inflows in the last three months have been consistently at Rs. 29,000 crore has been above. These trends have strengthened domestic institutions in what he describes as an ongoing FIIs versus DII tug of war.

Vijayakumar points out that it becomes difficult to maintain consistent overseas sales in the face of such stagnant domestic flows. He argues that taking large short positions when the economy is performing well and earnings visibility is improving is not a sustainable strategy. According to him, the ability of DIIs to absorb FII sales reflects the growing maturity in India’s equity ecosystem.

What adds significance to the story is that foreign investors are not uniformly negative on India. Despite the heavy selling in the secondary market, so far in 2025, FIIs in the primary market have invested Rs. 67,000 crore has been invested. This includes participation in IPOs and other capital raising exercises, indicating continued confidence in India’s long-term growth story.

A number of temporary factors weighed on overseas sentiment, including rupee depreciation, delays in finalizing the US-India trade agreement and global uncertainty surrounding AI-led trade. These may be short-term drags rather than structural concerns.

Vijayakumar asserts that the single most important driver for the market will be earnings growth, which looks promising as India heads into FY27.

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