The nation’s market, currently the world’s fifth largest at $4.5 trillion, briefly overtook Hong Kong last month. Still, its weight in global stock indexes is below 2%, leaving ample scope for foreigners to ramp up investments, analysts including Mahesh Nandurkar and Chris Wood wrote in a Feb. 21 note.
“This should change as market free-float rises and some weight anomalies get sorted out,” Jefferies said. If the nation’s track record of generating annual returns of 10% in dollar terms over the past two decades holds up, India’s market will be “impossible for large global investors to ignore,” the report added.
One of world’s fastest rates of economic growth has made India an attractive market for global investors, especially for those looking to pivot away from China. The South Asian nation’s gross domestic product has risen by 7% CAGR over the past decade to $3.6 trillion, helping the economy jump from the eighth-largest to the fifth biggest.
Jefferies expects India’s GDP to touch $5 trillion by 2027, putting the nation’s economy ahead of Japan and Germany thanks to tailwinds of demographics, institutional strength and improvement in governance standards.
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