In a month when the Nifty 50 fell roughly 6%, the best-performing equity portfolio management services still delivered positive returns. The top 10 strategies tracked for September returned between 3.55% and 5.67%. What stands out is not just the outperformance, but how concentrated and overlapping their portfolios were.
Sterlite Technologies emerged as the clearest common thread. Amaltas Asset Management’s Keystone Fund, the month’s top performer with a 5.67% return, had nearly a quarter of its portfolio in the stock (24.32%). East Green Advisors’ Quant Strategy, Atlas Integrated Finance’s Momentum 20 Fund and Bonanza Portfolio’s Aegis also carried meaningful positions in Sterlite Technologies. Cupid Limited and MTAR Technologies appeared repeatedly as well, particularly in the books of East Green and Atlas.
This is the second consecutive month the same cluster of names has dominated the winning PMS portfolios. In August, the leading strategies already showed heavy overlap in Cupid, Sterlite Technologies, MTAR Technologies and TD Power Systems. September’s leaders did not disperse. They stayed with the same optical-fibre, data-centre and specialty names that had already worked.
Amaltas Keystone Fund runs a concentrated, high-conviction multi-cap book, typically 10-15 stocks, with a value and special-situations bent. The September portfolio reflected that style: a very large position in Sterlite Technologies, followed by energy and microfinance names. The strategy is designed to take large bets when the manager sees asymmetric upside.
East Green Advisors’ Quant Strategy and Atlas Integrated Finance’s Momentum 20 Fund both sit in the multi-cap/flexi-cap category and showed almost parallel top holdings. Both carried Cupid as a large position, Sterlite Technologies and MTAR Technologies. Atlas also held Laurus Labs and TD Power Systems. The overlap suggests these managers were responding to similar price momentum and thematic signals around optical fibre, data-centre related businesses and select specialty names.