Commodities, which fell 0.5% during the month, remained the best-performing major asset class on a year-to-date basis, with a 12% return, compared with a 1.4% gain for equities and 3.7% for fixed income.
Fund flows also moderated across several asset classes during the month. Equity fund inflows fell to ₹31,326 crore in August from ₹45,325 crore in July. Money market inflows declined to ₹43,407 crore from ₹1.47 lakh crore, while fixed-income funds saw an outflow of ₹1,468 crore in August compared with an inflow of ₹6,212 crore in July.
Commodity fund inflows, however, increased to ₹4,800 crore from ₹4,081 crore in July, despite the asset class recording a marginal decline during the month.
Equity themes show mixed performance
Performance across equity themes varied in August. Of the 23 themes tracked by Vallum Capital, IPO and Defence were the only ones to record positive returns, gaining 2.2% and 1.4%, respectively.
Auto and Railways were among the biggest decliners, falling 6.5% and 6.4%, respectively, while Technology declined 6.1%. Within technology-related segments, Internet & Digital gained 3.2%, whereas the IT Index fell 9.1%.
Smaller-cap segments outperform large caps
Market-cap segments also recorded divergent performance in August. Micro-Cap gained 2.6%, while Small-Cap was marginally positive. Large-Cap declined 4.1%.
Multi-Cap fell 2.2%, Mid-Cap declined 2.4% and Large & Mid-Cap slipped 2.5%.The data shows that the decline in equities was not uniform across market-cap segments and themes, with some smaller-cap segments and individual themes recording gains during the month.
Global markets
Among global markets and themes tracked in the report, Brazil gained 9.9% in August, while Global-Commodity rose 8.8%. Global Miners gained 6% and Emerging Markets rose 2.3%.
The US market declined 0.4%, Europe fell 2.1% and Global Clean Energy dropped 4.7%. Korean ETFs were among the sharper decliners during the month.
Overall, August saw varied performance across asset classes and equity segments, with commodities retaining their lead on a year-to-date basis despite a monthly decline.
