Indian stock markets most preferred among global investors

Mumbai: Indian capital markets have emerged as the top preference for investments among global institutional investors in the Asia Pacific region, says a report.

Australia and China (H shares) have been rated as second and third most overweight markets from the Asia Pacific region by global investors, for this year.

China (H shares) represents securities listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

"Within Asia Pacific, survey participants chose three countries as their most overweight country picks: India, Australia and China (H shares) cumulatively accounting for around 50 percent of the total votes," the report by Credit Suisse on investor sentiment said.

"India and China-H were in the top-four overweight countries last year too; however, Australia was the most under-weighted region," it added.

Besides, Hong Kong (4th), Indonesia (5th), China (A shares -- traded on Chinese bourses) (6th), Japan (7th), the Philippines (8th), Singapore (9th), Korea (10th) were among markets listed as overweight by the investors.

As per the report, around 42 percent of the respondents were of the view that the Asia Pacific index will be up over 10 percent this year, with another 43 percent expecting it to be flat.

"China's growth and currency risks were highlighted as the biggest risk to the markets (followed closely by the risks from geopolitical issues)," the report said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan, Malaysia, Japan and China-A were by far the markets that investors were most underweight on.

At the sector level, healthcare was now the most liked sector overtaking the traditional preference of technology, in the Asia Pacific region.

This was followed by Internet, consumer discretionary, technology and financials.

Globally, respondents felt that Asia (excluding Japan) was likely to provide the greatest upside for equity investors in 2016.