Equity mutual funds witnessed a record inflow of Rs 41,887 crore in October, marking a surge of over 21 per cent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis, fuelled by robust investments in thematic funds.

This also marks the 44th consecutive month of net inflow in the equity-oriented funds, highlighting the ever-increasing appeal of mutual funds among investors, data with the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) showed on Monday.

“October’s numbers are indeed phenomenal, especially given the backdrop of a steep market correction.

While earlier this year, equity inflows were buoyed by strong market performance, October marked a stark reversal.

“The 5-6 per cent drop in both the Sensex and Nifty was one of the sharpest in recent years, similar to what we last saw in March 2020.

Despite this, retail investors have shown remarkable resilience, with inflows exceeding Rs 40,000 crore,” Santosh Joseph, Co-founder and CEO of Germinate Investor Services, said.

Overall, the mutual fund industry witnessed an inflow Rs 2.4 lakh crore in the month under review, after an outflow of Rs 71,114 crore in September.

The huge inflow was due to investments to the tune of Rs 1.57 lakh crore into debt schemes.

The industry’s net assets under management rose to Rs 67.25 lakh crore last month from Rs 67 lakh crore in September.

As per the data, equity-oriented schemes witnessed an inflow of Rs 41,887 crore in October, as compared to Rs 34,419 crore in September.

Before this, equity schemes saw an inflow of Rs 40,608 crore in June.

Within the equity schemes, sectoral thematic attracted investors with the highest net inflows of Rs 12,279 crore during the month under review.

However, flow in the segment was less compared to Rs 13,255 crore in September.