Tata Power, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance among shares that insurers bought in Oct; ITC, CDSL on sell radar

Top top life insurers, excluding LIC, were seen buying a couple of stocks namely HDFC Bank Ltd, Tata Power Ltd, Bajaj Finance Ltd, Avenue Supermarts Ltd (DMart) Navin Fluorine Ltd in October while they were seen dumping shares of FMCG companies such as ITC Ltd, Britannia Industries Ltd and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), data compiled by Nuvama Institutional Equities suggest.

In total, four insurers namely ICICI Prudential Life, HDFC Life, Tata AIA Life Insurance and Kotak Life Insurance together increased holdings in HDFC Bank to 9,21,97,000 shares in October from 8,95,19,000 shares in September, valuing Rs 395 crore. The four insurers held a total of Rs 13,613 crore worth HDFC Bank shares at the end of October.

They upped stake in Radhakishan Damani-led DMart to 34,12,000 shares in October from 24,79,000 shares in September, valuing Rs 395 crore. The four insurers held a total of Rs 1,240 crore worth DMart shares at the end of October. In BSE, they bought Rs 302 crore worth equities. Navin Fluorine (Rs 208 crore), Kansai Nerolac Paints (Rs 160 crore) and IndusInd Bank (Rs 151 crore) were a few other stocks seeing healthy buying by the four insurers.

Other stocks where they upped stakes included HDFC Life, Astra Microwave, Page Industries, Cholamandalam Finance, Tata Motors and Dabur India.

Three FMCG stocks namely ITC (Rs 353 crore), Britannia (224 crore) and HUL (Rs 179 crore) were among their top four sells. Top insurers sold Rs 196 crore worth KEI Industries shares. Dixon Tech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, CDSL, Persistent Systems, Trent and Zomato were some of the other stocks that they trimmed stakes to in Octobe

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