India equities

noclaf

Hi All,

My investments are all global equities OEIC's/ETF's of some kind or the other, I typically don't take a position on a specific country as I don't feel comfortable/ lack the insight etc (excluding home country of UK which I will happily overweight!)

I am about to diverge on this as want to invest a small (circa 8%) part of my overall investments in Indian Equities, specifically Franklin FTSE India ETF which I can hold on my Fidelity SIPP at a reasonable cost. There is an active Matthews fund that invests in India but it's not cheap and the performance has been lagging the Franklin ETF. There is also iShares MSCI India ETF but my platforms don't list this ETF and it's also more expensive than Franklin though not unreasonably so.

Interested to know if other forum members have a view on Indian Equities and if you do invest, what type of funds you are looking at etc I do think India is on a upward trajectory but also aware the political/ security situation can be a bit choppy and same applies to the Governance aspects albeit slowly improving.

Rheumatoid

I have held Jupiter India in an HL ISA for a while. It has been a bumpy ride but now doing well and has grown about 30% in 3 years. It did lose about 30% in the first year!

george4064

I invest in India via an active Asia Pacific investment trust: Pacific Assets Trust plc

bostonerimus

Why would you want to do this? I have no views or insight into India and I don't think the retail investor should ever consider investing in such a focussed fund. An actively managed geographically specific fund is the definition of a fund that I would avoid like the plague...Keep Things Simple.

dunstonh

Single country emerging market funds are extremely high risk.   You risk 90% losses.  Yes, there can be substantial upsides but the downsides need to be considered.   Maybe ok for a percent or two but 8% is a heck of a lot.   Especially at a time when globalisation is in reverse, and onshoring is occurring.

Linton

I think at the moment India is too small a market to justify an individual fund holding.  It is smaller than the US, China, Japan and Hong Kong.  Do you have individual holdings for each of those markets? And there are other smaller countries which could greatly expand in the future if that is your criterion

Better I think to use a SE Asia fund.  Different funds give different allocations to the countries. Stewart Investors Asia PAcific Leaders Sustainability to take one chosen at random is 54% India.

noclaf

Thanks all for the feedback, really useful.
Context is important, I am 41 and can't see myself retiring till 57-60 subject to health etc I will need that timeframe to build sufficiently sized investments to support retirement.

Current investments below, the two smallest funds are in the workplace pension so should increase with each monthly contribution). The CT fund is the only active, rest all passive and fund choice was also dictated by platform/fund availability/fees.

2% CT responsible global equity

2% L&G environmental global equity

20% Vanguard Ftse Global All CAP

13% HMWO

63% VEVE

So why would I consider such a regionally focussed fund? The main consideration is if developed markets and especially the US/UK growth for the next few years is muted then should I be trying to look further afield to emerging/developed markets to plug the gap? I've seen other threads mention lowering US equities exposure sub-50%....what would take its place?

I do ack the warning about the risk of loss on EM funds, I thought 8% was conservative but maybe not! 2/3% on my overall portfolio size probably isn't worth the hassle or dealing fees.

El_Torro

I've owned both Latin American funds and African funds in the past. Crazily both are regions with a smaller population than India. These days I mainly focus on multi asset funds though. The multi asset funds I use all invest in India, and that's all the exposure I need / want. 

The real question is: Why would you want to invest more in India than a global tracker or multi asset fund already does? Sure, India might perform brilliantly over the next 19 years. Then again it might not. As dunstonh pointed out 8% is not a figure I would be comfortable with. As you say if you go with a more "sensible" figure, 2 or 3%, is it really worth bothering with?

bostonerimus

noclaf said:

Thanks all for the feedback, really useful.
Context is important, I am 41 and can't see myself retiring till 57-60 subject to health etc I will need that timeframe to build sufficiently sized investments to support retirement.

Current investments below, the two smallest funds are in the workplace pension so should increase with each monthly contribution). The CT fund is the only active, rest all passive and fund choice was also dictated by platform/fund availability/fees.

2% CT responsible global equity

2% L&G environmental global equity

20% Vanguard Ftse Global All CAP

13% HMWO

63% VEVE

So why would I consider such a regionally focussed fund? The main consideration is if developed markets and especially the US/UK growth for the next few years is muted then should I be trying to look further afield to emerging/developed markets to plug the gap? I've seen other threads mention lowering US equities exposure sub-50%....what would take its place?

I do ack the warning about the risk of loss on EM funds, I thought 8% was conservative but maybe not! 2/3% on my overall portfolio size probably isn't worth the hassle or dealing fees.

Never chase gain! Saving/investing more is the best way to grow your pot, not ramping up the risk.

JohnWinder

Ignorance is a poor basis for investing, and we rightly try to correct that. But autonomy without ignorance is a horse of a different colour. Someone deliberately choosing passive funds well diversified, and considering fees, isn’t ignorant, so I wouldn’t be condemning 8% Indian funds if someone feels disposed to them. It’s not my choice, but we have to allow for some autonomy. India seems to be about 6% of global, so 8% is not crazy overweight. What to buy? Try to find a fund tracking a decent index, don’t pay too much in fees, forget active unless there’s compelling reason not to. Make a note of your thinking in going Indian, and think about an exit strategy. And while we’re at it, some of this Indian talk is because some of us said 60% USA was too much!

george4064

JohnWinder said:

Ignorance is a poor basis for investing, and we rightly try to correct that. But autonomy without ignorance is a horse of a different colour. Someone deliberately choosing passive funds well diversified, and considering fees, isn’t ignorant, so I wouldn’t be condemning 8% Indian funds if someone feels disposed to them. It’s not my choice, but we have to allow for some autonomy. India seems to be about 6% of global, so 8% is not crazy overweight. What to buy? Try to find a fund tracking a decent index, don’t pay too much in fees, forget active unless there’s compelling reason not to. Make a note of your thinking in going Indian, and think about an exit strategy. And while we’re at it, some of this Indian talk is because some of us said 60% USA was too much!

Where did you get the 6% from?

Vanguard FTSE GAC and VWRL ETF has India at 1.9%..