1,131 stocks in equity funds, and 136 held by one fund

The number

On 31 August 2026, India's equity mutual funds held 1,131 different Indian stocks. Of those, 136 sat in just one scheme's portfolio.

The money is nowhere near as spread out as that list. The 100 most-held companies by value account for 60.1% of the ₹36.89 lakh crore these schemes held in Indian shares. The 250 largest account for 83.1%.

The data is the AMCs' monthly portfolio disclosures for 31 August 2026, read for 587 schemes in SEBI's equity categories, one row per scheme. Index funds, ETFs, hybrids and fund-of-funds are not included. A stock is counted once per ISIN; a holding's rupee value is its weight times the scheme's net assets on that date.

How many funds own each stock

So a third of the list (373 stocks) is held by five schemes or fewer. Together those 373 are worth ₹38,696 crore, about 1% of the money in Indian shares. The 136 held by a single scheme are worth ₹6,131 crore.

At the other end, the 69 stocks held by more than 100 schemes are the familiar names: ICICI Bank is in 336 portfolios.

Who holds the stocks nobody else does

Small-cap funds, mostly. Of the 136 single-holder stocks, 57 belonged to a small-cap fund, worth ₹4,219 crore, and 29 to a sectoral or thematic fund.

The largest of these sole positions on 31 August 2026:

Most of these are small weights in large funds. Nippon India Small Cap Fund holds 254 stocks, so a 0.30% position is one of many. Savita Oil Technologies is the exception, at 3.53% of an energy fund.

Several names recur. Quant Small Cap, SBI Contra, Nippon India Small Cap and DSP Small Cap each appear twice in the top nine.

Why a stock has few holders

The disclosure does not give reasons, but the usual ones are straightforward.

Size. A company worth a few thousand crore cannot absorb a position that matters to a fund managing ₹40,000 crore.

Liquidity. Shares that trade thinly are hard to buy and hard to sell, and most funds avoid them.

Conviction. Sometimes one manager simply sees something the others do not. Nothing in the data distinguishes this from the first two.

What this does not tell you

The count is not exhaustive. Index funds, ETFs and hybrid funds own stocks too, and a stock held by one equity scheme here may sit in several of them.

It is one month. We have the 31 August 2026 disclosure only, so we cannot say whether a sole holder is building a position or leaving one.

Rare is not the same as undervalued. A stock few funds own is a fact about other people's portfolios, not a forecast. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or fund.

Where to go from here

The stocks page lists every company funds hold, and each stock's page shows its holders.

For the crowded end of the list, see the stocks Indian mutual funds own most. For the funds that own most of the rare names, see how concentrated small-cap portfolios are.