ETMarkets.comSpeaking to ET Now, Singh pointed to a straightforward arithmetic explanation: February had five fewer processing days than normal, with the 27th and 28th both being public holidays. “It was not actually three days — it was five days lost,” he said. Those missed transactions will roll into March’s numbers, making a rebound to or beyond the ₹31,000 crore level virtually certain.
ETMarkets.comMore importantly, Singh said there has been no meaningful uptick in SIP closures or cancellations — the real metric that would signal a loss of retail confidence. If anything, market volatility driven by the Middle East conflict appears to be working in SIPs’ favour, with investors leaning into the rupee-cost averaging mechanism that makes systematic investing most effective during market downturns.
Singh also pushed back on reading too much into the headline net inflow figure. Gross flows — the total amount invested — tell a different story from net flows, which are reduced by profit-booking redemptions from a separate cohort of investors. The two groups are distinct, he noted, and conflating them obscures the true level of fresh retail participation.
On the recent rotation into gold and silver funds, Singh was measured: “A lot of money was coming in because of sharp price rises — those are not sustainable things.” The return to equity-oriented SIP flows, in his view, represents a “shift to sanity” rather than any loss of appetite for equities. He expects inflow patterns to remain stable in the months ahead, with domestic investor participation continuing to act as a buffer against FII-driven volatility.
