Three things the flow file does not tell you . pulled apart line by line
Flow data is a record. It arrives after the decision and after the trade. By the time the number prints in your feed, the position is already on the book and the price is already in the chart. Read it as a sentence about yesterday, not a verdict on tomorrow.
LINE 01
FII net sell crore
Yesterday minus today
Settled cash exchange traffic across all FPIs. Lands on the next morning. The trade was placed before the close.
Not a direction call
No ticker. No size per name. No reason. Same number can be 30 funds rebalancing or one fund unwinding.
Above Rs 2 lakh cr net seller
Heaviest YTD print in a calendar year. The number is real and large.
Not a price forecast
Nifty closed within 4 pct of its 52 week high through the same window. A record flow met an absorbed tape.
LINE 03
DII net buy crore
SIP arrival + MF allocation
Rs 26500 cr a month of SIP lands on AMC desks. Allocation logic spreads it across the universe over days.
Not always a believer
A DII buy print can be passive index inflow into the same names regardless of view. The dip catcher and the indexer print the same column.
Cleared inside the day
Price absorbs the flow as it arrives. By close it is in the chart. The flow file lands the next morning.
Not the same dataset
Flow is a settled cash report. Price is a continuous auction. One is a ledger entry. The other is an opinion.
Order of arrival on your screen . the four hour gap
15:30
Cash market closes . price is set
15:45
Provisional FII DII print on exchange site
19:00
Settled FII DII numbers in mainstream feeds
09:15
Next session opens on yesterday's flow
By the time the flow file is in your screen, the position is on the book and the price is in the chart. The market did not wait for you to read the spreadsheet. Card three has the three rules for reading it sanely.