How to track FPI flows by sector using NSDL data

To track FPI flows by sector in India you use sector wise FPI investment data published by NSDL, not the daily flow headlines. SEBI requires foreign portfolio investors to hold their Indian securities through the depositories, which is why NSDL can publish sector-level positions at all: it is reporting custody data, aggregated. The release is fortnightly, it is free, and it answers a different question from the daily numbers most coverage quotes.

Where the data lives

NSDL runs a dedicated FPI reporting site at fpi.nsdl.co.in. The reports that matter for sector work are:

• Fortnightly sector-wise FPI investment data. Sectoral holdings for each fortnight, which is the series you use to see whether FPI positioning in a sector rose or fell.
• Assets under custody, category-wise. FPI assets under custody split by FPI category.
• Assets under custody, country-wise. The top jurisdictions from which FPI assets are held.
• Debt utilisation status. How much of the FPI debt investment limits has been used.

Because FPIs must hold through depositories, CDSL data forms part of the same picture. Read the NSDL sector series as the sector view and the AUC reports as the size view.

The method

1. Decide what you are measuring. Sector positioning over months is a holdings question and belongs to the NSDL series. What foreigners did yesterday is a flow question and belongs to the exchange numbers. Mixing the two produces contradictions that are not really contradictions.
2. Download consecutive fortnights, not a single release. One period's sector figure is a level with no context. The change from fortnight to fortnight is the signal.
3. Watch the sector taxonomy. NSDL's sector buckets are its own. They do not map one to one onto index sector definitions, so do not compare an NSDL bucket against a sector index weight as if they were the same universe.
4. Separate price from position. A sector's holding value can rise because FPIs bought or because the stocks in it went up. If you need position rather than value, compare the sector's share of total FPI assets under custody rather than the rupee figure alone.
5. Go to stock level elsewhere. When a sector move raises a question about a specific company, the stock-level answer is in that company's quarterly shareholding pattern, not in NSDL's aggregate.

Why this differs from the daily FII/DII figure

The exchanges publish provisional daily buy and sell values for foreign and domestic institutional investors in the cash market. Those are session-level trade values, revised later, and they cover only what traded on the exchange that day. NSDL's sector data is a holdings position, aggregated from custody records, published fortnightly. A day of net selling in the daily series can sit inside a fortnight where a sector's custody holdings rose.

Both series are useful, and neither is a correction of the other. For the daily series and its own caveats, see FII and DII activity explained and how to track FII/DII daily.

Going from sector to stock

Sector aggregates tell you where foreign money sat, never which company it sat in. For a specific stock, the disclosure that carries foreign holding is the quarterly shareholding pattern that every listed company files with NSE and BSE, which breaks out promoter, FII/FPI, DII and public holding. The mechanics are in how to read a shareholding pattern and how to check FPI holdings.

Two definitional points that trip up sector work. FPI and FII are not interchangeable labels, and the registration categories matter when you compare series across years: see FII vs FPI and what is an FPI. Offshore derivative instruments, covered in what is a participatory note, are reported separately again.

The limits worth stating plainly

• It is period-end, not live. A fortnightly release describes the fortnight it covers.
• It is aggregated. No stock names, no individual FPIs.
• Values move with prices. A rising sector value is not proof of buying.
• Sector definitions are the publisher's. Compare NSDL to NSDL across periods, not NSDL to an index.

Flock reads primary filings and disclosures and stamps every data point with its source and date. Sector wise FPI investment data tells you where foreign portfolio investor assets sat for a given fortnight. What that means for you is your call to make. This is not investment advice.