The point
In the cash market in October 2026, foreign institutions sold ₹47,816.70 crore of shares on a net basis, and domestic institutions bought ₹61,113.20 crore. FII is the foreign side, short for foreign institutional investors, and DII is the domestic side. Each daily figure is purchases minus sales for one group, so it shows who ended the session heavier, not who moved first.
What do FII and DII actually count?
An FII, now formally called a foreign portfolio investor (FPI), is an overseas fund or institution that buys Indian listed shares and bonds. A DII, a domestic institutional investor, is an Indian institution such as a mutual fund or an insurer that does the same with Indian savings.
The daily table you see on market sites sorts every institutional trade into one of those two groups and prints the net. It counts institutions only, so it says nothing about what individual investors did.
That leaves the line with two blind spots: how much was traded, and why. A net figure is one number laid over thousands of separate decisions made by funds with different mandates and horizons.
Source: 5paisa FII and DII table for the cash segment, read 29 October 2026.
What did the two sides do in October 2026?
As of 28 October 2026, the 5paisa table for the month shows these cash-market figures, in crore rupees:
- FIIs bought ₹2,59,983.10 crore and sold ₹3,07,800.10 crore, a net sale of ₹47,816.70 crore.
- DIIs bought ₹3,24,710.70 crore and sold ₹2,63,597.90 crore, a net purchase of ₹61,113.20 crore.
The arithmetic is short. ₹3,07,800.10 crore minus ₹2,59,983.10 crore is ₹47,816.70 crore. ₹3,24,710.70 crore minus ₹2,63,597.90 crore is ₹61,113.20 crore. DII net buying was about 128 percent of FII net selling (₹61,113.20 divided by ₹47,816.70), a gap of ₹13,296.50 crore in favour of the buyers.
Those lines describe how institutional money was split across the month. Nothing in this piece predicts what either group does after it.
Source: 5paisa, month-to-date FII and DII cash table, read 29 October 2026.
Why is the net figure smaller than the activity behind it?
FIIs sold ₹3,07,800.10 crore in the month and bought ₹2,59,983.10 crore back, so the ₹47,816.70 crore net sale is about 15.5 percent of what they sold (₹47,816.70 divided by ₹3,07,800.10).
The other 84.5 percent of the selling was matched by the same group's own buying. A single fund can sell one company and buy another on the same day, and the line records only the difference.
The sessions inside the month also pull in different directions. Using the same table:
- On 26 October 2026, FIIs were net sellers of ₹1,462.50 crore and DIIs net buyers of ₹2,609.60 crore.
- On 27 October 2026, FIIs were net buyers of ₹4,240.40 crore and DIIs net sellers of ₹1,250.00 crore.
- On 28 October 2026, both were net buyers, FIIs by ₹871.80 crore and DIIs by ₹643.40 crore.
Across those three sessions the pairing changed each time. A story that says domestic money always catches foreign selling is true on 26 October and false on 27 October.
Source: 5paisa, daily FII and DII cash rows, read 29 October 2026.
Where does the domestic buying come from?
Much of it is a standing order. A mutual fund SIP is an instalment the investor has told a bank to send on a fixed date. The fund house puts that money to work whatever the index did that morning.
AMFI data for September 2026 reports SIP inflows of ₹32,490 crore, a record, against ₹32,297 crore in August. Equity mutual funds took a net ₹38,306.55 crore in September. Mutual funds sit inside the DII group, so their inflows reach the table as DII buying.
Two cautions keep this honest. September's AMFI figure and October's exchange table cover different months, so one does not equal the other. And mutual funds are only one kind of DII, so the SIP number explains a direction of travel, not the exact ₹61,113.20 crore.
A scale check at portfolio size makes the mechanism concrete. A ₹25,000 monthly SIP is ₹3 lakh in a year. To match October's FII net selling of ₹47,816.70 crore (₹4,78,16,70,00,000), it would take about 1.91 crore SIPs of ₹25,000 in a single month (₹4,78,16,70,00,000 divided by ₹25,000 is 1,91,26,680).
Source: AMFI data for September 2026, as reported by The Hans India on 12 October 2026, read 29 October 2026.
How should you read the daily line?
The daily line is a poor basis for a decision and a fair way to understand a month.
A day's net is provisional and sits on top of a much larger gross. A single session can reverse the one before it, as 26 and 27 October 2026 did. A month's net, set beside the SIP inflow that funds the domestic side, tells you who held the market up and how steady that support is.
Three habits make the line useful:
- Look at the gross purchases and gross sales next to the net, so you see how much the net is leaving out.
- Read a month, not a day, and keep the two groups side by side.
- Ask which kind of buyer sits inside each group before you give the number a story.
Foreign flows also depend on rules, and the rules are being looked at. On 28 October 2026, Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the regulator will review compliance requirements for foreign portfolio investors. A consultation paper will seek views on aligning them with global standards, while keeping safeguards for investor protection and market integrity. Pandey acknowledged that some of India's requirements are more onerous than those in other major jurisdictions. As of 28 October 2026 the paper had not been published, so no proposal exists to read yet.
Source: Daily Excelsior, report of the Sebi chairman's remarks dated 28 October 2026, read 29 October 2026.
What does this mean for a portfolio you already hold?
A flow line measures other people's decisions. Your own allocation is a decision about your horizon, and it should not move because an institution's net figure changed sign for a session.
The same logic applies to how you add money. Fixed instalments on a fixed date are the domestic side of this story in miniature. That is why what each of SIP and lump sum asks of your nerve matters more than any session's flow. If you want the foreign half in more detail, read what an FII is and what its selling does to the index. For the question every holder eventually faces when the index falls, see how a position is sized to survive a drawdown.
The next question in this cluster is what the index number itself hides when only a handful of shares carry it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between FII and DII?
An FII, or foreign portfolio investor, is an overseas institution that invests in Indian markets. A DII is an Indian institution such as a mutual fund or an insurer. The daily table prints each group's purchases minus sales as one net figure.
Where does the daily FII and DII data come from?
Exchanges publish provisional cash-market figures for the two groups after each session, and market sites such as 5paisa reprint them in a table. As of 28 October 2026, that table shows FIIs net sold ₹47,816.70 crore and DIIs net bought ₹61,113.20 crore for October 2026.
Why can DIIs buy when FIIs sell?
Domestic institutions receive steady money, chiefly mutual fund SIP instalments. AMFI reported SIP inflows of ₹32,490 crore in September 2026, a record. That inflow arrives whatever the market did, so it gives DIIs cash to deploy during foreign selling.
Does FII selling mean the market will fall?
No flow line promises a direction. On 27 October 2026 FIIs were net buyers of ₹4,240.40 crore while DIIs were net sellers of ₹1,250.00 crore, the reverse of the session before. The figures describe what happened, not what comes next.
Is the FII and DII number final?
The daily figures are provisional exchange aggregates, so they can differ slightly between sites. Read the gross purchases and sales beside the net and treat one day as a rough count.
Crypto investments are subject to market risk. Not financial advice.
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