Investing in India

yasohail

I am thinking about investing in India using Fidelity India Focus fund.

Does anyone have any experience in investing in India and is it profitable.

I'm going to open it as an ISA

dunstonh

Does anyone have any experience in investing in India and is it profitable.

It doesnt work that way. Emerging economies are high risk and have very high potential for growth and very high potential for loss. It will be volatile and you will see big swings up and down from time to time.

A suggestion (not advice) if you are willing to invest in that sort of risk area is to spread your funds over a range of emerging economies so you dont have all your investments in one location. i.e. if £7000 investment, put £1000 into 7 different regions.

carnet

...or into Emerging Markets UT's/OEICS/IT's where the fund manager will do the switching from country to country as conditions dictate.

oceanblue_3

yasohail wrote:

I am thinking about investing in India using Fidelity India Focus fund.

Does anyone have any experience in investing in India and is it profitable.

I'm going to open it as an ISA

A number of my clients have been investing on a monthly basis over the last 12 months, and it's done very well for them.

However, as dunstonh says, you've got to know what you're getting into with this sort of fund:

1) there are currency risks inasmuch as your investment's success could be wiped out by movements in the relative value of the rupee and sterling,

2) your concentration would be on one, largely untried, geographical area,

3) if you make a one-off investment, then your fortunes are focused on one arbitrarily timed and highly speculative bet.

If you really do have an appetite for high-risk investment, and you are prepared to look upon the venture as a gamble that could result in a total and irrecoverable loss, then current wisdom would argue for regular monthly investments rather than a one-off punt. Geographical diversification could be achieved by investing in the currently fashionable "BRIC" areas (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) rather than just India itself.

Have a look at the Trustnet website, and try to find out more about the sorts of funds that invest in these areas.

Good luck!

isasmurf

Remember that discussing specific investments on MSE it is against the forum rules. This topic can be discussed as long we don't stray into specific Indian funds, or start giving advice.

Thanks

Conrad

You might want to view my Africa thread.

India has already had a massive SM spurt so Im not sure much share - price growth is likely to be had for some time.
Eastern Europe, Africa and S America appeal more to me. Smart money has been investing in Argentina following thier recent economic collapse.

I tend to invest away from the crowd, for example as soon as the tech bubble burst here, I piled - in, despite my advisers telling me to do the opposite.

To achieve significant growth you need to invest in under - valued areas, which often can be scarry as 'the crowd' are doing the opposite, and very often is at odds with what the retail financial services indusrty (eg Legal & General) are focused on.

In the early nineties I was dead against with profit bonds, yet all the advisers were recommending them. Common sense told me that such costly,complex packaged investments were to be avoided.
The reason I'm telling u this is to try and get accross to you that the financial services indusrty is very reactive and poor at spotting trends. In other words spot your own trends. AFRICA will become popular with mass providers 'AFTER THE EVENT', the time to get in is now before the crowd arrives.

I do invest some in UK funds but feel that people who are very UK focused are entirely misguided.

Im also investing in Germany as thier assets are hugely undervalued. Whilst I was over therer looking for cheap land, my German Lawyer told me many UK Hedge funds were quietly buying - up German property and equities.

A German focused fund might be well worth a punt.

I tend to invest monthly rather than one - off lump sums.

lestamunda

Which African funds are they?

carnet

Conrad wrote:

I tend to invest away from the crowd, for example as soon as the tech bubble burst here, I piled - in, despite my advisers telling me to do the opposite.
I tend to invest monthly rather than one - off lump sums.

Certainly agree with taking a contrarian approach to investment. When the herd (including, in my experience, many so-called professional brokers, advisors, pundits etc.) favour zigging you should be thinking of zagging.

Also agree that, whenever possible (don't always follow this route personally for numerous reasons), monthly investment should be seriously considered to avoid the possibility of poor timing/benefit from pound/cost averaging.

ioscorpio

What about investing in property in India, the prices in Goa seem to be steadily increasing.