Ownership, FII & Promoter Activity

Promoters Buying While FIIs Selling

Promoters Buying While FIIs Selling is a Ownership, FII & Promoter Activity screen. It checks every NSE-listed stock against 2 conditions computed from nightly data, after excluding heavily pledged promoters and very small market caps. This page explains the rule, each figure and its source. It lists no stocks and is not advice.

What it does and why

Foreign investors sometimes exit India due to macro reasons entirely unrelated to individual company quality — rupee depreciation fears, EM risk-off cycles, or SEBI regulatory uncertainty. When FIIs are selling a stock for these macro reasons while the company's own promoters are simultaneously increasing their stake, a classic information asymmetry opportunity exists. The promoters know whether the business thesis is intact; the FIIs may not. This divergence screener surfaces stocks where the people with the most information are saying 'buy' while global investors are creating selling pressure — the contrarian intersection.

The rule, step by step

A stock must satisfy every condition below. Conditions are grouped under the pillar they test.

Insider vs Institutional Divergence

Promoter Holding Change QoQ > 0
FII Holding Change QoQ < 0

Hard excludes

Promoter pledge above 30% of the promoter's holding
Market cap below ₹500 crore

Passes the screen

Ranked by Promoter Holding Change QoQ, highest first.

The figures it uses

Promoter Holding Change QoQ

Used in a condition

Formula: Promoter % this quarter − last quarter, percentage points
Input fields: promoter holding
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/pattern/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

FII Holding Change QoQ

Used in a condition

Formula: FII % this quarter − last quarter, percentage points
Input fields: FII holding
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/pattern/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

Promoter Pledge

Hard exclude input

Formula: Pledged shares as a share of the promoter's own holding: pledgedSharesPct ÷ promoter holding × 100; blank when the quarter is not listed
Input fields: pledgedSharesPct, promoter holding
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/summary/{symbol}?period=quarterlyFinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/pattern/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

Market Cap

Hard exclude input

Formula: Close × paid-up equity shares ÷ 10,000,000 (₹ crore)
Input fields: close, paidUpEquityShares
Source of record: Upstox · public historical candles, NSE_EQ|{ISIN} (no auth)FinEdge · /api/v1/daily-quotes/{symbol} (fallback)FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/summary/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Corporate actions: Adjusted for corporate actions before use
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

What each figure means

Promoter Holding Change (QoQ, %)

Change in promoter holding percentage versus the prior quarter. Positive means insiders are net buyers.

This screener requires a positive promoter change (insiders buying) while FII change is negative (FIIs exiting). The larger the promoter increase, the stronger the conviction signal.

High is better

FII Holding Change (QoQ, %)

Change in FII holding percentage versus the prior quarter. In this screener, the relevant condition is that this is negative — FIIs are selling.

The FII exit creates the divergence. A larger FII exit makes the promoter buying more striking — the insiders are swimming against the institutional tide. Verify whether the FII exit is India-specific (macro concern) or company-specific (due diligence concern). If company-specific, the promoter signal loses value.

Low is better

Pledged Shares (% of Total Equity)

The percentage of total equity pledged by promoters. Zero or declining pledge validates that the promoter buying is from free cash, not borrowed against the company's own stock.

A promoter buying while simultaneously pledging shares would negate the signal. This must be low or zero for the contrarian thesis to be clean.

Low is better

Try the rule

Type hypothetical values to see which conditions they satisfy. These are not real stocks and nothing here is stored.

Promoter Holding Change QoQFII Holding Change QoQPromoter PledgeMarket Cap

Promoter Holding Change QoQ > 0—
FII Holding Change QoQ < 0—

Enter values to begin

A worked example

Loading the worked example…

Evidence

What the harness measured

no_verified_figureNot yet tested

We have not measured this screen yet, so there is no record to explain.

Live monitoring

5-day IC -0.015 · signal date 2026-10-14 · n 4447
22-day IC -0.038 · signal date 2026-09-12 · n 3840

This is a historical, statistical measurement produced by FINOME TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD's research harness on past data. It is not a prediction, and past results do not indicate future results. The universe is today's Nifty 500 constituents, so the sample is affected by survivorship bias. It describes how a screen's selections behaved in the past and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation.

Run this screen

Rule version 1.0.0

1.0.0 · 2026-10-20 — First versioned rule: every screen's conditions, ordering and hard exclude were transcribed from the served definitions into one specification. No behaviour change.

Questions

How is this screen calculated?: Each stock is tested against 2 conditions using figures computed from exchange prices and company filings, adjusted for corporate actions. The rule is versioned; this page shows version 1.0.0.
How often does the screen update?: The figures are recomputed once each trading day after the nightly compute. A stock whose figures are more than three days old is left out rather than shown stale.
Is this investment advice?: No. This is educational material describing a screening method. It does not recommend any security and does not consider your circumstances.

Educational use only — GoQuant is a research tool. This page explains a screening method and is not a recommendation. Investment advice is provided by FINOME TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD (AltQube), SEBI-registered Investment Adviser, registration no. INA000018373, under a signed advisory agreement and after a risk profile. Past performance is not indicative of future results.