This is the second time when the FIIs went on a selling spree in the curreny fiscal. While the first "Quit India movement" was triggered by the nuclear test and the resultant US sanctions, this time it is the panic over US-64 which forced many FIIs to press for sales.

FIIs have offloaded equities worth Rs 627.7 crore on the Indian bourses during the first five trading days of the current month, says the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI.

On the back of a Rs 294.7 crore gross purchase, during the week-ended October 9, the net FIIs outflow was Rs 333 crore. In dollar terms, this translates into a net sales of equities worth $ 78.3 million. Since January 1, thisyear, cumulative FIIs investment is down by $ 287.3 million from $ 8998.2 to $ 8710.9 million.

Interestingly, as per the statistics released by the SEBI on Tuesday, after selling debt instruments heavily since the beginning of the year, the FIIs remained totally inactive in this segment till October 9.

Of the total Rs 333 crore outflow, the major FIIs selling during the week under consideration took place on October 5, the day of BSE Sensex crashed by a record 224 points on US-64 jitters. FIIs outflow on Monday last was over Rs 88 crore on the BSE while another Rs 55 crore was witnessed on the National Stock Exchange.

During the post-Pokharan months of May and June this year, the FIIs had sold heavily, both in the equities and the debt segments, forcing a combined outflow of $ 416.4 million (Rs 1720.1 crore). While the net FII outflow in the equities segment during those two months was $ 314.8 million (Rs 1,308 crore), in the debt segment its net investments was negative at $ 101.6 million (Rs 412.1crore).

While net FIIs investment during July this year had again turned positive at $ 19.7 million (Rs 83.7 crore), the trend had turned negative again in August. During August, the Japanese banking worries and the deepening South-East Asian crisis had forced the FIIs to take $ 106.9 million (Rs 457.1 crore) out from the Indian bourses.

Only last months again, with the FIIs bringing in $ 32 million (Rs 137.5 crore) the trend had turned positive.