Mumbai: The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) recorded net purchases of Rs 648.5 crore ($142.7 million) in equities during the trading week ended March 12.

Mutual funds (MFs), in contrast to FIIs, netted outflows at Rs 24.02 crore in equities but remained net buyers in debt at Rs 213.41 crore for the reporting period, according to the data available with Securities and Exchange Board of India.

FIIs were net sellers in equities on the first day of the trading week at Rs 16.9 crore ($ 3.7 mn) while netting their highest purchases of the week at Rs 356.7 crore ($ 78.5 mn) on March nine.

The foreign funds were also active in the debt market for four trading days and registered net purchases at Rs 395.9 crore ($ 87.1 mn) and Rs 351.5 crore ($ 77.3 mn) on March 10 and 12 respectively.

MFs were net sellers in equities for three trading days and recorded highest net sales of Rs 47.84 crore on March eight followed by Rs 5.7 crore and Rs 18.21 crore on the next two days.

In the debt market, MFs were net buyers at Rs 110.79 crore, Rs 78.78 crore and Rs 54.97 crore on March 10, eight and nine respectively.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened marginally higher at 5899.26 and gyrated in a range between 5951.03 and 5570.81 before concluding the week at 5700.40 from the previous weekend's close of 5880.35, a massive fall of 179.95 points.