MUMBAI, July 28: After a long time, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have turned net buyers in the Indian stock markets. Net FII investments in the week to July 24 stood at Rs 83.4 crore in the equity segment with no investment in the debt segment. The gross purchases by FIIs amounted to Rs 314.6 crore while the gross sales stood at Rs 231.2 crore, showing an inflow into the markets.With this, the cumulative net investments in July stood at Rs 73.3 crore on cumulative gross purchases of Rs 1,161.8 crore and cumulative gross sales of Rs 1,088.5 crore. SEBI chairman D R Mehta said, "FIIs were net buyers at $ 15.6 million (Rs 1.56 crore) for the period July 1 to July 27. Although this is marginal investment it shows that the FIIs are not running away from India but still have a positive outlook towards India."FIIs were selling shares in the Indian market in June and early July following a host of developments like sanctions on India, downgrading by global rating agencies, fall of other Asian markets,depreciation of the rupee and the downtrend in the economic growth rate.As much as $ 400 million was pulled out by FIIs from the Indian markets.Many FIIs which had huge exposure in South-east Asian markets like Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia sold their holdings in India to cover the losses in other Asian markets. Several FIIs had cut their fund allocation for the current year.With the FIIs now bringing in funds, analysts expect the stock markets to show stability in the near future.