“When a bull appears on a magazine cover, sell your stocks and head for the hills”, thus goes the saying among the stockbrokers in India. However, if we look at the current sensex bull run, one can postpone journey to the hills.Sensex, which was at 6639 points during the first week of January 2005, crossed the 9000 mark by end-December.
Some of the business magazines have even predicted that sensex will cross the 14,000 mark. Meanwhile, in the last 365 days, there was no `scam’ reported for the sensex zoom. We need to take this as one of the best moment for the Indian business, which even includes the IT sector.The moving force behind the stock market is the foreign institutional investors (FIIs).
Reportedly, it is said that the year 2005 saw as much as $10.6 billion by the FIIs to the Indian stock market.According to Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries of India (ASSOCHAM) over 250 FIIs registered during the last five years to take the total number of FIIs in India to 803.There are few reasons to believe that the stock exchanges will remain bullish, says V Vijay, Director at DelFin Analytics. “Revival of business environment in Europe and Japan, depreciation of rupee against the US dollar, earning growth prospects of India Inc, and favourable and expanding business climate in the US,” he says.
He also states that `offshoring’ has become the mainstream and even some of the European countries are looking at off shoring for the cost reduction. “Due to this, investment into the IT stocks is also on the rise,” he said.IT firms such as TCS, Wipro, Satyam, i-flex, Infosys saw a steady growth. For instance, Infosys stock, which was under Rs 2000 during the beginning of the year, crossed Rs 3000, growing 50 percent in a year. Similarly, Wipro stocks have gained over 60 percent growth in the last one-year.The IT stocks will see a steady growth in 2006 as well, if we look at the current trend in the global market, says Vijay.
from http://www.ciol.com/content/special/2005/default.asp?page=best8 (as of this trading day the stock market index had crossed the 11,000 mark briefly).
Some of the top Foreign Institutional Investors in India (including hedge funds, pension funds, and mutual funds) compiled from numerous sources are:
Morgan Stanley
Goldman Sachs
Capital Group
Citigroup
Master Trust Bank of Japan
Bear Sterns Asset Management
CALPERS
Mirae Asset Investment
Matterhorn Ventures
Stitching Pension Fund ABP
Nomura India Investment Fund
Melton Medes Pension Trustees
Gammon India
Merril Lynch
Seaheaven Investment
HSBC
Carlson Equity Fund
Lloyds George Investment
Nikko Asset Management
Lotus Global Investment
