This will follow Israel's exit from the Index and entry into the MSCI World Index, comprising developed markets.
China has stayed on top for two consecutive months in the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index (EM IMI), after ceding the position to India in August. At the end of October, China's weight in the key EM gauge stood at 24.72 per cent, up from 21.58 per cent at the end of August. India's weight during this period has slipped to 20.42 per cent from 22.27 per cent.
The unprecedented rally in artificial intelligence (AI)-linked stocks has led to Indian companies being excluded from the top 10 constituents of the MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index for the first time in over two decades, raising concerns about concentration risk.
Just over a year ago, India was investors' top pick among EMs. Its slide down the rankings follows $30 billion (over 2.5 trillion) of foreign selling over the past 12-13 months.
Global index provider MSCI has announced the addition of four Indian companies-including Fortis Healthcare and Paytm - to its Global Standard indices. According to Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, each of these companies is expected to see passive inflows exceeding $400 million. Shares of Paytm rose 4.3 per cent on Thursday, while Fortis Healthcare dipped 1.1 per cent.
Indian IT stocks have experienced their most significant weekly surge in 18 years, with the Nifty IT index climbing 11.72 per cent, as a global sell-off in AI-linked equities redirected investor attention towards India's IT services sector. This shift aligns with a JP Morgan report identifying India as a 'natural AI hedge' due to its large, liquid market and strong domestic institutional investor base.
Morgan Stanley analysts, led by Ridham Desai, predict that the next phase of the Indian market rally will be primarily driven by the April-June quarter (Q1FY27) corporate earnings season and the performance of the monsoon.
India has lost its $5 trillion market capitalisation (mcap) tag following Monday's sharp selloff in equities and a simultaneous slide in the rupee.
Trade deals ease risks for Indian equities, but weak demand and stretched valuations raise questions over whether optimism -- especially in smallcaps -- can turn into a sustained bull run, points out Debashis Basu.
In dollar terms, the Indian markets managed to climb back to 2008 levels only in January this year. The subsequent fall in the rupee because of emerging market woes has once again pushed the markets below their 2008 level in dollar terms.
They believe that long-term story is intact.
Further outperformance hinges on pickup in industrial activity, buying by local investors.
Everything, from stocks to bonds and currencies, has been hammered by indiscriminate selling.
JPMorgan has downgraded Indian equities to 'neutral' from 'overweight', citing elevated valuations, rising earnings risks, and limited exposure to next-generation technology like AI. The brokerage believes other emerging markets offer more attractive risk/reward propositions despite India's strong structural growth story.
India, best-performing among emerging markets in the first four months of 2017, has since ceded this position to South Korea.
A sharp rally in domestic stocks from June lows has once again rendered Indian markets expensive to their emerging-market (EM) peers. The 12-month forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple for the Nifty50 Index is around 20.6x - 82 per cent higher than 11.3 per cent for the MSCI EM Index. India's valuation premium has hit a five-month high. This is on the back of sharp outperformance to EM and global peers from June lows and also due to earnings downgrades, following the April-June quarter of 2022-23 earnings.
With India overtaking China in terms of weightage in the Morgan Stanley emerging markets IMI, Indian equities could see inflows of about $4.5 billion (Rs 37,000 crore), according to estimates. This week, Morgan Stanley announced that India has overtaken China in the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index (MSCI EM IMI). The weight of India in MSCI EM IMI stood at 22.27 per cent compared to 21.58 per cent of China.
The Indian equity markets will soon account for over a fifth of a key emerging market (EM) benchmark tracked by funds with assets exceeding $500 billion. This development is expected to funnel as much as $3 billion into the domestic markets. Following the latest review undertaken by global index provider MSCI, India's weighting in the MSCI EM index will surpass 20 per cent for the first time, narrowing its gap with the current top-weighted China to fewer than 400 basis points.
UBS has turned bullish on emerging markets (EM), including India, as it finds benign macro trends, positive momentum in earnings revisions, and resilient EM currencies helping these economies sustain higher valuations and attracting flows. Among regions, it has upgraded Mainland China to 'attractive' and China Tech to 'most attractive', while downgrading Philippines to 'neutral'.
The 12.5 per cent EM outperformance this year is surprising. As any market strategist will tell you -- in times of stress when safe haven trades are in fashion, emerging markets typically fall faster than developed ones as investors switch out of what they deem to be riskier assets.
Global emerging market investors are sharply cutting back on India, making it the largest underweight market, as funds rotate into China, Hong Kong, and South Korea amid tariff shocks and valuation concerns.
US-based boutique investment company GQG Partners has shot into limelight with its Rs 15,446-crore Adani wager.
Promoters of India's top private listed companies have cut their stakes sharply since 2021, taking advantage of elevated valuations and reshaping ownership dynamics in the market. Holdings of promoters in the top 200 privately owned listed firms declined nearly 600 basis points (bps) to 37 per cent at the end of FY25, from 43 per cent in FY21.
'Even if India is attractive, FPIs currently lack the funds to invest, as money is being redirected to the US.'
From the outcome of the general elections and then Union Budget to tepid corporate earnings in the September 2024 quarter (Q2-FY25), sticky inflation and Reserve Bank of India's stance on interest rates, extreme weather conditions, Indian stock markets have braved it all in calendar year 2024.
GST 2.0 may cushion consumers against US tariffs, but like the 2019 corporate tax cut, it risks being another tactical fix rather than a structural growth strategy, expects Debashis Basu.
In August, domestic equity markets garnered one of the highest foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, despite the US Federal Reserve standing firm on unwinding its stimulus measures to control inflation. FPIs pumped in over Rs 51,000 crore ($6.4 billion) in August, the most since December 2020 and the third-highest tally since March 2020-the month the Covid-19 pandemic roiled global markets. This was the second consecutive month of positive foreign flows. In the preceding nine months, FPIs had yanked out over $32 billion or Rs 2.2 trillion.
With India's stock markets being one of the best performing among the emerging markets, a number of global pension funds are planning to make India-specific allocations.
Global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, Christopher Wood, has cut his exposure to Indian equities by one percentage point in the Asia-Pacific ex-Japan relative-return portfolio, and Australia and Malaysia by half a percentage point each in favour of China, which has seen a hike in exposure by two percentage points. The rally in China has been fast-forwarded by the approach of a seven-day holiday with the CSI 300 Index up 8.5 per cent on Monday, and 25.1 per cent in five trading days, he said.
Foreign investors highlight growing risk to the India story.
The Indian equity markets have significantly increased in importance within the emerging market (EM) basket of stocks in recent years. Since 2018, India's weighting in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) EM Index - tracked by passive funds with assets of nearly $500 billion - has doubled, while the number of domestic stocks has grown by almost 70 per cent.
India is finally waking up to the fact that its credit drought might be here to stay.
Though the outcome of the general elections will offer a short-term boost to the market, a sustained rally will be determined by the economic data, according to a JP Morgan Asset Management report.
Many giving double-digit returns, with India up less than one per cent; even so, it has done much better than other emerging markets.
The deluge of offerings in the primary market, a muted results season and increasing talks of a Fed taper may quicken the pace of overseas investors selling Indian equities in the near term. The next few weeks may see a dozen companies tap the market for initial public offerings and raise about Rs 30,000 crore. These include the likes of Zomato, Glenmark Life Sciences, Utkarsh Small Finance Bank and Seven Islands Shipping.
South Korea's move to ban stock short-selling may further delay its quest to bag an 'upgrade' to 'developed market' status from global index provider MSCI, said analysts. South Korea will prohibit stock short-selling until June 2024 to allow its regulators to "actively" improve rules and systems. South Korea is currently classified as an 'emerging market (EM)' alongside India, China and Taiwan in MSCI indices.
