How to read FIPI & LIPI
FIPI (Foreign Investors Portfolio Investment) covers three groups: foreign corporates (the funds and institutions most people mean by "foreign investors"), foreign individuals, and Overseas Pakistanis trading through Roshan Digital Accounts and similar channels. LIPI (Local Investors Portfolio Investment) covers everyone at home: individuals, companies, banks and DFIs, non-bank financial companies, mutual funds, brokers trading their own book, insurance companies and others.
Why the two always cancel out
Every share sold by a foreigner is bought by someone. In equities the two nets are mirror images — FIPI of −4.41 means LIPI of +4.41 — so the interesting question is never whether locals absorbed foreign selling, but which locals did, and in which sectors. In November's reports the absorber has repeatedly been the same: mutual funds, whose steady inflows from local savers have made them the market's shock absorber — +20.24 on 10 November alone.
What it tells you — and what it doesn't
Foreign flow is a sentiment gauge, not a valuation signal. Foreigners have sold a net US$663mn in 2026 while the KSE-100 made all-time highs — proof that the local bid (funds, companies and individuals) is now deep enough to set prices without them. Persistent foreign selling still matters: it caps how far multiples can stretch, it leans on the rupee, and a sudden return of foreign buying has historically been rocket fuel for the large, liquid stocks foreigners can actually own. Read the trend over weeks, not the noise of a single day.