Mumbai, Nov 11 : While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) returned as net buyers in October, BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) and Oil and Gas sectors led inflows, seeing investments worth $1,501 million and $1,030 million, respectively, a report said on Tuesday.

In October, both FIIs and DIIs were net buyers ' to the tune of $1.3 billion and $6.0 billion, respectively ' as the Nifty increased by 4.5 per cent last month, according to the report from brokerage firm JM Financial Institutional Securities.

Sectors that saw the high FII inflows included metals, telecom, auto, and power sectors recorded inflows of $355 million, $243 million, $110 million, and $109 million, respectively, the report added.

FMCG experienced the highest FII outflows at $482 million, followed by services at $391 million, pharma at $351 million, IT at $248 million, durables at $198 and chemicals at $105 million, it noted.

In terms of equity holdings by FIIs, BFSI, auto, IT, oil & gas, and pharma represent approximately 60 per cent of FII assets under custody (AUC) in India, the release said.

BFSI remained the largest sector, holding 31.7 per cent of FII AUC, the report noted.

Of these, there was a sequential uptrend in BFSI and IT while auto and oil and gas saw a decrease. Pharma remained flat.

Indian equities recovered strongly in October, with Sensex and Nifty up over 4 per cent, aided by FII inflows and improved domestic sentiment.

Real estate led sectoral performance, while oil & gas, metals, banks and IT outperformed the Nifty, even as healthcare, power, FMCG and autos underperformed.

The NSE Midcap index rose 4.8 per cent and the BSE Smallcap index gained 3.2 per cent.

Nifty is currently trading above 20 times FY27 estimated earnings, which is slightly above last 10-year average PE ratio.

/IANS