If you’ve seen the volatility lately, this isn’t too surprising. More retail money seems to be coming through mutual funds now.
Individual investors apparently sold ₹13,000 crores of direct equities from December 2025 to March 2026. Our clients were net buyers to a similar tune.
Btw, all the retail participation has been through mutual funds. Direct retail ownership has been pretty much flat to declining.
19.2 + 16.1 + 11.5 + 7.1 +2.0 = 55.9%
Who holds the remaining 44.1% ? 
Promoters.
OK.
Eyeballing the above chart, over the last 10years (2016-2026),
This share has come down from ~57% to the current ~44%.
(100 - (~20 + ~11+ ~6 + ~4 + ~2) = ~57%)
With DII and FII volumes compensating each other during this period,
the MF (retail indirectly) appear to be the ones
that are enabling the promoters to liquidate
nearly a quarter of their ownership over the last decade (in aggregate).
Alternately, considering this ghost fraction of the “promoters” as HNI ownership,
does this paint a somewhat rosy picture of reducing economic inequality
atleast in the NSE-listed equity market?
maybe there was a component of tax loss harvesting and selling to make use of the exemption limit of 1.25L. I did two times with TCS, sold, bought Sold and bought before 31 march
Did not understand this part. - are u saying people sold this value of direct investment in shares and bought mutual funds and all this from zerodha the entire 13,000 cr?
Part of it will also be due to recent listing of new age companies, where in most cases promoter holding is low or very negligible at listing itself.
So need not necessarily mean promotes liquidated all that holding in last 10 years and retail bought it.
Also the banks were forced to bring down their promoter holding down to zero. And banks are a big part of the Nifty, and the overall market. So I think that also has something to do with the promoter share going down.
