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The Bright Future Of The Indian Consumer

After Narendra Modi’s political party won the general election in May 2014, the Indian economy set off in a new, promising direction. Favorable demographics and foreign direct investments will be the long-term tailwinds. Tumbling inflation makes consumers more confident in spending. It is estimated that by 2030, India is likely to surpass the USA and China and become the world’s largest consumer market. Economists and investors have turned optimistic about the prospects of the Indian economy since Narendra Modi’s political party won one of the largest elections in the country’s history last May. Before Modi became a Prime Minister, he led one of the fastest growing states in the country, so many people believe his government will be able to push through the most critical reforms to liberalize local industries and revive economic growth. According to the International Monetary Fund, the reform plan of the new Prime Minister is promising, although the key is going to be implementation . In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecasts that India will grow at 6.3% this year and 6.5% in 2016, when it is likely to overtake China. In contrast to the accelerating Indian economy, the Chinese economy is still projected to struggle with its decelerating growth rate. In 2015, China’s growth rate is expected to slow to 6.8%, while a year ago it reached 7.4%. One should not forget that India is the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.27 billion people (17.5% of the world’s population), and is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2025. What is more interesting is that more than 50% of the Indian population is below the age of 25, and it is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan. This population composition together with Modi’s ambitious ‘ Make in India ‘ program to attract foreign direct investments will undoubtedly support the ongoing rapid expansion of India’s middle class consumer market. A very good piece of news for the Indian economy is that the great fall in global crude oil prices, 60% in the last six months, has helped to finally tame the long-standing high inflation rate. In particular, the rising prices of food have slowed, which frees up more disposable income for India’s middle classes to spend on other goods and services. The improving optimism of Indian consumers can be evidenced by the following graph showing the recent progress of consumer confidence. (click to enlarge) According to Rachna Nath, head of retail and consumer at PwC India, consumers are still hesitant about making big luxury purchases despite the record values of the index. Consumers are positively bullish because of what the new government is doing right now, but all of them will say that we also need to see it translate on the ground. However, Indians do seem prepared to splash out on some premium fast-moving consumer goods, like foodstuffs, for example. Just a few years ago the Indian market was dominated by basic glucose biscuits. Today, higher-end varieties have grown popular. On the back of better incomes, the overall FMCG market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 14.7% to 110.4 billion dollars during 2012 and 2020. By that year, some reports even predict that India will become the world’s third largest middle class consumer market just behind China and the US, which it will likely surpass by the end of the next decade. Probably the best suited ETF for the trends highlighted above is the EGShares India Consumer ETF (NYSEARCA: INCO ), which is designed to track the Indxx India Consumer Index measuring the market performance of 30 Indian consumer sector companies. Since Narendra Modi assumed the office of Prime Minister in late May, the fund has added more than 34%, while two major Indian equity benchmarks, the CNX Nifty and the S&P BSE SENSEX, have gained 20 and 19% respectively. Since the beginning of this year, the fund has yet outperformed both indices by more than 6%. Moreover, most of the time, shares of the fund trade at a modest discount to NAV. Last year, there were 211 out of 252 trading days when the fund’s market price was below the reported net asset value, and this year, there have already been so far 26 such days. Presumably, the most significant INCO’s drawback lies in it’s liquidity as the fund was launched relatively recently and has a little over 52 million dollars assets under management. The picture below displays key statistics of INCO’s portfolio as of 12/31/2014. Source: EGShares India Consumer ETF’s factsheet Over the long-term, the highly inclusive sector of automobiles & parts in INCO should not only benefit from rapidly growing car and two-wheeler manufacturing industry , but also from the intended investments into infrastructure, which can be directly grasped through another ETF – the EGShares India Infrastructure ETF (NYSEARCA: INXX ). Nevertheless, one should be aware that many investors currently perceive these infrastructure projects to have unfavorable risk-reward relationships . On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a mistake to purchase the WisdomTree India Earnings ETF (NYSEARCA: EPI ), iShares MSCI India ETF (BATS: INDA ), iShares S&P India Nifty 50 Index ETF (NASDAQ: INDY ), PowerShares India Portfolio ETF (NYSEARCA: PIN ), or any other ETF, which provides exposure to the broader Indian equity market, as Modi’s reforms concern the economy as a whole. Disclosure: The author is long INCO. (More…) The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

3 Promising India Focused ETFs

Summary India will overtake China’s GDP growth rate in 201 according to IMF and I believe that Indian equities are positioned for a multi-year bull market. Infrastructure is India’s biggest challenge as well as the biggest opportunity and I believe that the sector will perform well amidst lower interest rates in the foreseeable future. India’s consumption story has just commenced and with very favorable demographics, India’s consumption is likely to grow at a robust pace making the consumer related ETF attractive. While the focus has been on large companies in the recent rally in Indian markets, the small companies hold immense long-term potential and the small-cap ETF looks attractive. India is poised to overtake China’s GDP growth in 2016 according to the IMF and I have been bullish on India since the new government came to power in 2014. Recently, I wrote an article on IMFs GDP outlook for 2015 and 2016 where I opined that India and the US are the bright spots in the global economy and I also opined that India is likely to be the best performing equity market in 2015. I had also provided two stock picks and one ETF for exposure to Indian markets. In this article, I will be discussing three more ETFs that look very interesting considering a 2-3 year time horizon. I believe that these ETFs can serve as catalyst for the portfolio and investors need to diversify to India in order to boost overall portfolio returns. EG Shares India Infrastructure ETF (NYSEARCA: INXX ) The India Infrastructure ETF is designed to measure the market performance of companies in the infrastructure industry in India. For 2014, the ETF provided returns of 20% and I believe that the ETF will provide returns in excess of 20% in 2015. The reasons are as follows – The Indian central bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points recently and another 75-100 basis points interest rate cut is likely. Lower interest rates will trigger upside for the interest rate sensitive infrastructure sector. As the chart below shows, India needs infrastructure investment of nearly $1.25 trillion over the next 10-years and as the pace of investment grows under the new government, infrastructure companies are likely to outperform. (click to enlarge) The ETF has high exposure to large and very large infrastructure companies in India and therefore the exposure is with companies having strong fundamentals. The trailing PE ratio of the ETF holdings is 17.9, which is lower than the broader NIFTY PE of 22.2. Therefore, on a relative basis, the sector is still undervalued and has upside potential. For these strong reasons, the EG Shares India Infrastructure ETF is an interesting ETF to consider not only for 2015, but with a long-term investment horizon. EGShares India Consumer ETF (NYSEARCA: INCO ) As the name suggests, the India Consumer ETF is focused on the consumption theme. For 2014, the ETF provided an extraordinary return of 48%. While the same performance might not be replicated in 2015, the fund still looks very promising for strong returns over the next 3-5 years and a return of 15% to 20% in 2015 on a conservative basis. The Indian consumption theme has just commenced and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) clocking gross sales of $1 billion in the first year of operation in India is an indication of the potential the broad consumption theme holds in India. The PwC report is also upbeat on the media and entertainment sector in India for the next 5 years. Further, India is set to become the youngest country in the world by 2020 and the favourable demographics mean that India has huge potential when it come to consumption themes such as personal goods, automobiles, media and entertainment. The India Consumer ETF provides exposure to all these sectors of the economy with exposure to all the big players in the respective industries. I therefore expect the ETF to provide stellar returns considering a time horizon of 3-5 years. India Small-Cap Index ETF (NYSEARCA: SCIF ) I believe that the Indian Small-Cap Index ETF, which has provided returns of 43% in the last one year, is another excellent ETF to consider for 2015 as well as for the next 3-5 years. The above mentioned ETFs would give investors exposure to large or very large companies in India in the respective sectors. However, there is immense potential in some of the small or mid-sized companies in India. The growth for these companies can be robust if overall economic growth and sector growth is strong. With the ETF currently having 30.1% exposure to the financial sector, 21.1% exposure to the consumer discretionary sector and 17.6% exposure to the industrials sector, the outlook for the ETF will certainly be robust in 2015. In particular, the financial sector will surge on low inflation and rate cuts and both these factors will also impact the consumer discretionary and industrials sector. As of December 2014, the ETF had a very low PE of 11.24 and I believe that the ETF has strong upside in the coming quarters. In general, the broad market rally is led by large-caps followed by mid-caps and small-caps. Therefore, I expect the ETF to start moving significantly higher based on current valuations. Conclusion India is certainly one of the most attractive markets for 2015 and I believe that the Indian economy is on a path to sustained and robust growth in the next 5-10 years. Therefore, investors need to have Indian stocks in their portfolio and the ETFs discussed have the potential of providing 15% to 30% annual returns if the government keeps its promise on drastic policy changes in the coming months.