Stock price when the opinion was issued
(A Top Pick August 9, 2017. Up 6%). He stepped away from emerging markets earlier this year but India still offers a good multi-year story. India adopted a biometric identity card system that puts everyone into the standard economy and away from the shadow economy. Deposits at banks are way up because of this. There are many other healthy signs in the economy. BUT, if emerging markets suffer, India will suffer. Because he doesn’t have to be in EM, he’s out of this for now.
The question was on buying an ETF for India. He likes the idea of investing in India. He thinks China will continue to struggle and this benefits India which has good potential at 8% GDP growth forecast. For U.S. dollars he recommends INDA and for Canadian dollars he suggests ZID. He reminds investors that there is a lot of volatility in foreign markets.
INDA is a bit more diversified with 70-90 stocks, instead of just the top 50 of INDY. The MERs are fairly pricey around 90 bps or so. The MER for EPI is somewhat smaller, around 30 bps lower.
He's not that familiar with that market or the companies in those ETFs. Modi has made changes there, mainly to the good. But ethnic divisiveness is a serious issue. He's not investing there for his clients at this point.
India? The Indian central banker has just resigned. He was a great central banker and has done a lot of good things for the country. However, he doesn’t think this resignation will impede the plans of the Mohdi government. It would be hard to find a better emerging market than India. Everything you see in the West, such as aging demographics, high debt levels or low interest rates, there is the exact opposite in India. This is the ETF that he uses to plays this theme. This is especially a good, long term holding.