With our investment outlook for 2018 and the prospects for India’s life insurance business
In this special extended outlook issue of Mumbai Monitor1:
Quarterly review: India’s macroeconomic indicators are showing signs of recovery in areas of consumption and industry such as cement and steel production, oil consumption and car sales
Our 2018 investment outlook for India:
– earnings should pick up as inflation returns and demand improves
– an expected pollution clampdown in China and India should aid selected sectors
– discretionary expenditure should grow faster than non-discretionary spending as affluence rises, urbanisation increases and e-commerce grows
– a seven-point government plan aims to strengthen the rural economy, putting farmers on track to doubling their income by 2020
– structural and cyclical factors favour rising household savings and thus greater financial savings, including in equities
The Indian life insurance business has considerable scope to grow, helped by positive real interest rates and a favourable tax treatment.
1 – Mumbai Monitor is for professional and institutional investors only
The value of investments and the income they generate may go down as well as up and it is possible that investors will not recover their initial outlay. Investing in emerging markets, or specialised or restricted sectors is likely to be subject to a higher-than-average volatility due to a high degree of concentration, greater uncertainty because less information is available, there is less liquidity, or due to greater sensitivity to changes in market conditions (social, political and economic conditions). Some emerging markets offer less security than most international developed markets. For this reason, services for portfolio transactions, liquidation and conservation on behalf of funds invested in emerging markets may carry greater risk.
