Mutual funds were sitting on Rs 1.86 lakh crore cash pile in August

Around five fund houses were sitting on more than Rs 10,000 crore cash pile last month. Among 43 mutual fund houses, SBI Mutual Fund had the highest cash allocation in its portfolio as of August 2024. The largest fund house had Rs 30,675 crore cash in its portfolio which was 4.33% of the total AUM.

ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund had around 30,357 crore cash holding which was 7.72% of the total AUM. HDFC Mutual Fund had Rs 25,012 crore cash holding in the portfolio. This cash holding accounted for 6.77% of the total AUM. Quant Mutual Fund had Rs 17,102 crore cash in its portfolio as of August 2024 against Rs 12,269 crore in July.

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Kotak Mutual Fund had Rs 6,101 crore cash holding in its portfolio which was 2.84% of the total AUM. The fund house had an equity AUM of Rs 2.08 lakh crore. Around 21 fund houses were sitting with less than Rs 1,000 crore cash. Out of these 21, nine fund houses had less than Rs 100 crore cash in their portfolio. Old Bridge Mutual Fund and Helios Mutual Fund had Rs 39.54 crore and Rs 27.74 crore cash respectively in their portfolios.Zerodha Mutual Fund had the lowest cash allocation of Rs 0.58 crore which was only 0.08% of the total AUM.

Among these 43 fund houses, 10 fund houses had more than Rs 10,000 crore equity portfolio in August. SBI Mutual Fund had the highest equity AUM of Rs 6.77 lakh crore, followed by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund which had an equity AUM of Rs 3.63 lakh crore.

Mirae Asset Mutual Fund and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund had an equity AUM of Rs 1.52 lakh crore and Rs 1.51 lakh crore respectively as on August 2024. Shriram Mutual Fund had the lowest equity AUM of Rs 169.92 crore in August.

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Based on percentage terms of total AUM, the cash holding by Quant Mutual Fund was the highest. The total cash holding by the fund house was 19.09% of the total AUM. The next in the list was Samco Mutual Fund which had cash allocation of 18.25% of the total AUM.

The cash holding by PPFAS Mutual Fund as a percentage of total AUM was 16.91% in August. HDFC Mutual Fund cash holding was 6.77% of the total AUM.

The cash holding by ITI Mutual Fund and DSP Mutual Fund was 4.18% each of their respective total AUM.

Fund managers are allowed to keep a part of their portfolio in cash to meet events like redemptions or make investments when they see a possible opportunity in the market.

The increase in cash holdings as a percentage of the assets by mutual funds indicates that the fund houses are moving cautiously in the current market scenario. New fund houses like Samco may typically try to hold cash and wait for bargain hunting in a likely correction. Some conservative mutual funds like PPFAS always hold cash when they sense the market has become expensive.