IRFC shares fall for the eighth straight day, its longest losing streak in three years

Shares of Indian Railways Finance Corporation Ltd. (IRFC) are trading with losses of another 2% in Thursday’s trading session. This is the eighth straight day of losses for the stock.

This is the longest losing streak for the state-run railway financier in over three years. The last instance of the stock seeing such a drop was between March 15 – March 25, 2021, during which the stock fell nine days in a row.

With Thursday’s drop, the stock is now tumbling towards its 50-Day Moving Average, which is placed at levels of ₹182. The stock has declined 17% from the record high levels of ₹229, which it had hit on July 15.

On the charts, the stock’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) has corrected from overbought levels, and now is at 48, which is neither “overbought” nor “oversold.”

Despite this recent correction, shares of IRFC are still up 8% for the month of July.

As many as 5.79 lakh small shareholders purchased shares of IRFC between the April to June period, as per the shareholding pattern. IRFC now has 50.63 lakh small shareholders, compared to the 44.84 lakh small shareholders that it had at the end of the March quarter.

India’s domestic mutual fund have also increased their stake in IRFC in the June quarter. From 0.18% at the end of March, funds now have 0.55% stake in the company. The stake of Foreign Portfolio Investors has remained mostly flat at 1.11%.

The government continues to hold a 86.36% stake in IRFC at the end of the June quarter, which means they will have to sell some excess stake at some point to be compliant with the Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) norms.

Shares of IRFC are trading 1.2% lower currently at ₹189.94.