Indian stocks seventh best performer globally for 2012

Indian stocks have emerged as the seventh best performer for global investors since the start of 2012, outshining the likes of the US, UK, China and Japan.

Helped by a significant uptrend in the Indian stock market in the past couple of weeks, the Indian stocks have given a year-to-date return of 12.3 per cent -- which is only next to six other asset classes globally, as per a ranking prepared by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The best return for this period has come from the Turkey equities (29.2 per cent), followed by Portugal government bonds (24.7 per cent), Singapore stocks (17.3 per cent), Mexico equities (15.5 per cent), Mexico government bonds (14.7 per cent) and Turkey government bonds (14.6 per cent).

The Indian government bonds are ranked 36th for the year- to-date period in 2012 with a return of 2.9 per cent, which is still better than the corporate bonds of China and Japan, stocks in Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Brazil, Portugal and Spain, as also government bonds in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Germany, Japan, Spain and Greece.

Those ranked below Indian equities include stocks in the US, Hong Kong, Germany, Korea, Russia, China, Switzerland, UK, Japan and France.

The rankings also take into account the currency exchange rates, as returns are based on the US dollar figures for all the asset classes.

However, Indian stocks have performed badly for a longer time period of the past one year, for which they are ranked at the bottom of the top-50 asset classes globally with a negative return of 23.8 per cent.

This list is topped by Ireland government bonds (24 per cent), followed by the UK government bonds, China corporate bonds, China government bonds and Australia government bonds. Indian government bonds are ranked 40th with a negative return of 10.8 per cent for one-year period.

For shorter time period of one week, Indian stocks are ranked 5th with an 8.6 per cent gain, after Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy equities.

The study said that the equity markets globally have attracted net fund inflow of $ 840 million so far in 2012, although India has seen a net outflow of $ 297 million for this period.