Inflows into equity mutual fund schemes rose by 42 per cent to Rs 19,957.17 crore in October on a net basis, primarily on account of higher inflows into small cap funds, data released by the Association of Mutual Fund (AMFI) showed. In September, net inflows into equity schemes stood at Rs 14,091.26 crore. The contribution from systematic investment plans (SIPs) stood at an all-time high of Rs 16,927.86 crore in October. “Equity is a good instrument to invest at this particular point of time because compared to the global markets, Indian markets are performing really well. Even corporate earnings are good. If the Indian economy is supposed to grow at around 6 to 6.7 per cent in this financial year, and more than that in the next financial year, then it is better to be (invest) in an equity like instrument,” said N S Venkatesh, CEO, AMFI. Net inflows into small cap funds increased to Rs 4,495.13 crore in October from Rs 2,678.47 crore in September. “We are seeing flows into the small cap funds because of the fact that the investors still believe that there is ability to make gains in the small cap funds. Retail investors believe that there is enough juice left there,” he said. Venkatesh said some of the mutual fund companies have stopped accepting inflows under small cap funds because they believe that there could be an issue in deploying these funds. He advised investors to be cautious while investing in the small cap funds and should do their own due diligence. After small cap funds, sectoral/thematic funds saw net inflows of Rs 3,895.72 crore in October. Inflows into mid cap funds stood at Rs 2,408.92 crore. Large cap funds inflows were to the tune of Rs 723.81 crore compared to outflows of Rs 110.6 crore in September. Multi cap and flexi cap funds witnessed inflows of Rs 2,910.75 crore and Rs 2,168.65 crore, respectively. After witnessing net outflows of Rs 1,01,511.82 crore in September, debt mutual funds saw inflows of Rs 42,633.70 crore in October. Inflows into liquid funds were Rs 32,963.8 crore, followed by Rs 6,248.46 crore in money market funds, Rs 2,359.04 crore in ultra short duration funds and Rs 2,000.6 crore in gilt funds. “The interest rates are peaking, which is getting reflected in the way people have put money in the short duration, money market and gilt funds,” Venkatesh added. However, there were outflows of Rs 3,444.8 crore from overnight funds, Rs 1,141.56 crore from low duration funds and Rs 393.14 crore from medium duration funds. Net inflows into hybrid schemes slowed to Rs 9,906.86 crore in October from Rs 18,650.45 crore in September. Inflows into arbitrage funds declined to Rs 5,523.15 crore from Rs 10,175.55 crore in September. The SIP asset under management (AUM) was Rs 8,59,923.86 crore in October, compared to Rs 8,70,363.38 crore last month. The number of net SIPs added in October were 17,08,866, which is the highest till date. Number of new SIPs registered in the month were 34,66,354.