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MEHUL SHAH

Mumbai, 27 September

Foreign institutionalinvestors (FIIs) havepoured about $18 bil-lion ( 81,880 crore)in Indian stocks so

far this year, their highest in- vestment in dollar terms in acalendar year.

FIIs net purchase were worth $17.89 billion in this yeartill Friday, according to dataavailable on the Securities andExchange Board of India (Se-bi) website. Provisional dataon the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) website shows they net-bought shares worth ` 1,136.8crore ($252 million) in the In-dian market today. This brings

the years total to $18.13 bil-lion ( 82,360 crore).The highest FII inflow in

both dollar and rupee terms was last year, when they hadinvested $17.64 billion.

The FII investment in rupeeterms in 2010 is lower com-pared with 2009 because of ap-

preciation in the Indian cur-rency against the dollar. BS Re-search Bureau figures show a dollar fetched ` 48.37 in 2009,on average, compared with` 46.05 in this year.

With the BSE benchmark,the Sensex, racing towards anall-time high, foreign investorsare pouring money in funds fo-cused on Indian stocks. For ex-ample, India-focused equityfunds received $300 million in-flows for the week ended Sep-tember 22, according to data

available from EPFR Global, which tracks fund flows in world markets.

This was the highest week-ly inflow into India equity fundsin nearly three years. EPFR da-

ta showed foreign investors out$503 million in India equityfunds till September 22.

At Mondays close of 20,117.38, the Sensex is about5.4 per cent away from itsrecord high of 21,206.77, hit onJanuary 10, 2008.

Within emerging markets,India is looking attractive, saidPauli Laursen, who oversees In-dian equities at SydInvest AssetManagement in Copenhagen.

In this month so far, FIIshave net-bought shares worthnearly $5 billion ( ` 22,700crore). Helping make Indiathe best performer within theemerging market pack in this

month.The 30-stock Sensex hasgained nearly 12 per cent inthis month so far. During thesame period, Chinas Shang-hai Composite Index has fall-en 0.4 per cent, Taiwans Taiexhas advanced 7.55 per cent,South Koreas Kospi has gone

up 6.8 per cent, Brazils Boves-pa has added 4.7 per cent andRussias Micex has moved up4.7 per cent.

However valuations are notcheap, experts say. Valuationsare not in a comfortable zone.They are bit stretched, saidU R Bhat, managing director atDalton Capital Advisors (India).

At Fridays close, the Sen-sex traded at 19.1 times itsestimated earnings per sharefor the current financial year,Bloomberg data showed.

FII INFLOWS CROS

$18 BN IN 2010 Foreign investment highest ever in dollarterms in a single calendar year

ON A ROLLFII INVESTMENT INEQUITY MARKET

Till September 24Compiled by BS Research Bureau