Foreign ETF Lovers Catch New Fancy in China, Brazil Mkts

Retail investors romancing the US through exchange-traded funds are discovering new vistas in emerging markets this year.

- Srushti Vaidya

Many Indians who invest abroad under the Reserve Bank of India's liberalized remittance scheme (LRS) appear to have shifted preference to China and Brazil since the start of the year, data from broking platforms indicated. The change comes amid a steep fall in US equities after President Donald Trump unleashed a tariff war.

Mint spoke to six brokers who offer direct access to global markets and found that investments into China and Brazil grew relatively more than the US in the current year, albeit on a low base. Still, it shows a marked shift from before, when investors focused mainly on the US markets.

"After January and especially through February and March, there has been growing interest in China, particularly in China-oriented ETFs as well as a few Chinese companies—a time where we noticed a bit of a de-focus on the US," said Sitashwa Srivastava, founder and chief executive (CEO) of Borderless, a platform which has done over $2 billion in trades over the last three years.