Weak market returns push more investors to pause SIP investments

Mumbai: Two years of challenging equity market returns appear to be prompting a section of retail investors to reassess exposure to the stock market, with industry data showing rising monthly systematic investment plan (SIP) discontinuations and a slowdown in new investor additions.

SIP halts continued to outpace new registrations in April, with stoppage ratio at 101%, unchanged from March, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). This indicates that more SIP accounts were closed than opened during the month.

Importantly though, flows through SIPs, the mainstay of domestic investments, have remained resilient.

Not a Short-term Game
This support has been critical for equities amid overseas investors stampeding out of the Indian markets. Any change in that trend would have led to greater market turmoil.

Still, the discontinuation trend has worsened over time, with the 12-month SIP stoppage ratio rising to 94.5% in March 2026, compared with 75.6% in March 2025 and 52% in March 2024.

Fresh investor additions slowed in April as well, with 295,000 new investors entering mutual funds, taking the total investor base to 61.7 million. This marks the slowest monthly addition since June 2023.

In comparison, the industry added 700,000 and 500,000 new investors in February and March, respectively. The pace has moderated in the past two years, with 7.2 million additions in the 12 months ended March, compared with 9.7 million in the preceding year.The growing SIP stoppages and the drop in fresh investor additions underscore dissatisfaction over lower-than-expected returns from equity schemes.

“Two years ago, many investors came in after watching incredibly high returns from the small cap space,” said Swarup Mohanty, vice chairman and CEO, Mirae Asset Investment Managers. “With high returns not coming their way now, they are disappointed.”

An SIP in the broad-based Nifty 50 would have lost 2.56% over the last two years, while an investment in the broad Nifty 500 would have fetched 0.83%.

“Many investors came with high return expectations in short time spans,” said Viraj Gandhi, chief executive, Samco Mutual Fund. “As returns over the last two years are low, new investors are slow to come by, while some investors who expected high returns could move to other avenues, which is a natural phenomenon.”