India ETFs In Focus On Rate Cut Hopes

Chances of another rate cut by India’s central bank Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increased significantly as retail inflation eased for a third straight month in October. As per government data, consumer prices were up around 4.2% on an annual basis. This is the slowest rise in the last 14 months and was in line with the median consensus in a Reuters' poll of economists.

In October, a six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) headed by the governor of Reserve Bank of India, (RBI) Urjit Patel decided to cut the repo rate in order to boost the Indian economy. This was the first time that the newly formed MPC decided on the monetary policy, which also issued a favorable inflation and economic growth outlook. The RBI MPC is due to review rates on December 6 and 7 (read: 4 India ETFs to Buy as RBI Cuts Rate).

Lately, India has been in the news lately, thanks to the demonetization move by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In order to tackle tax evasion, illegal money, fake currency and corruption, high-denomination bank notes of INR500 and INR1000 were withdrawn. The step is expected to have deflationary impact on inflation and remove unaccounted and untaxed money, thus making it easier for RBI to meet its medium-term inflation target of 4%.

As a result, India ETFs like iShares India 50 (JK:INDY) , iShares MSCI India INDA, WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (TO:EPI) and PowerShares India Portfolio ETF PIN could be on investors’ radar in the upcoming weeks (read: India ETFs Tangled Between Note Demonetization & Trump Win)

Small-cap stocks are generally more susceptible to changes in domestic economy. EGShares India Small Cap ETF (LON:SCIN) , VanEck Vectors India Small-Cap Index ETF SCIF and iShares MSCI India Small-Cap ETF (LON:SMIN) are some of the ETFs tracking small-cap companies based in India.

However, Donald Trump’s win in the U.S. is likely to cause uncertainty in the coming days in a few foreign economies. India might also be at the receiving end of Trump’s restrictive policies, particularly related to immigration and outsourcing (read: Foreign ETFs to Win or Lose on Trump Victory).

Trump plans to levy higher taxes on companies for outsourcing jobs to places like India. As per India’s central bank, India exported software services constituted $50 billion worth of exports to North America. As a result uncertainty looms large for India (see all Asia-Pacific Emerging ETFs here).

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ISHARS-SP INDIA (INDY): ETF Research Reports

ISHARS-M IND SC (SMIN): ETF Research Reports

ISHARS-M INDIA (INDA): ETF Research Reports

VANECK-INDIA SC (SCIF): ETF Research Reports

PWRSH-INDIA POR (PIN): ETF Research Reports

WISDMTR-IN EARN (EPI): ETF Research Reports

COL-INDIA SC (SCIN): ETF Research Reports

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