The FPI flight

Too many uncertainties are likely to keep foreign equity investors away for long

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O SAY THAT foreign portfolio investors (FPI) are not enamored of Indian equities would be an understatement. Going by the net sales of $15 billion between January and end-August, they clearly prefer other markets both in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. That's also evident from the allocations. As of August 27, the MSCI benchmark weighting (ex-Japan) for India was 15.8% compared with 29.3% for China and 18.6% for Taiwan. Indeed, as experts at Morgan Stanley point out, FPI portfolio positioning is at its weakest since 2000 when it started looking at the data.