New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS): Many of the large size mutual fund schemes were running on big cash through most part of CY2023, resulting in big underperformance.

“We are finally seeing panic and forced deployment beginning across many of those schemes. This is visible across board, but more prominently in the smallcap space”, Elara Securities said in a report.

Many of the names are laggards and did not participate aggressively in last year's rally, the report said.

Cashs level for largecap and midcap schemes have already dropped to February 2022 lows and now much below the long-term average. Smallcap cash is dropping sharply and is now marginally below the long-term average. However, the cash remains concentrated in a few bigger schemes where deployment has finally begun.

Smallcap schemes witnessed biggest drop in cash levels from 7.2 per cent in Nov ’23 to 6 per cent in Dec ’23. The big underperformance on back of cash call has started resulting in a deployment leg in the smallcap space.

Smallcap schemes were heavily invested in largecap names. This was also an additional reason for underperformance.

"Finally, we saw biggest drop in largecap holding in smallcap schemes since Dec ’21," the report said.