IndiaPost.com

NRIs turn bullish on Indian equity
Tuesday, 04.03.2007, 10:52pm (GMT-7)

MUMBAI: Buying in the Indian story, NRIs have become bullish on Indian equity market. In the last two months the NRIs have pumped in more than Rs 100 crore in the market.

While there is a growing skepticism among Indian investors regarding the volatility of the equity market at current levels, NRIs have chosen to take a different view in last couple of months. It was not long ago that NRIs were pulling out their money.

But now it appears there is a change in mindset. NRIs have invested nearly Rs 100 crore, in less than two months of the current calendar year. Although that is a small sum, but compared to the previous calendar year, when NRIs were net buyers at less than Rs 8 crore, it sounds good. Experts feel that corrections witnessed in the recent past have made NRIs more bullish on the Indian market and as such are looking to reinvest.

The data clearly shows that NRIs were pulling out money earlier, which was due to reasons like high rupee-dollar rate and valuation concerns. In the past couple of months, the Indian market has corrected, forcing them to rethink. Even though the rupee has appreciated over the last couple of months, the corrections witnessed in the equity market have led to NRIs increasing their investment. This was not the case earlier, when the rupee was also appreciating and the equity market was also at an all-time high.

As per the BSE data, NRIs were net buyers at Rs 28.68 crore and Rs 70.30 crore in February and March, respectively. In January, they were sellers at Rs 2.16 crore. Real estate has emerged as one hot sector amongst NRIs. Most NRIs seem to be eternally bullish on the infrastructure sector and ready to invest in any of the real estate companies. In addition, many of the first-time investors also prefer technology stocks.

-Agencies