India nearing equal standing with China as domestic demand grows

For quite some time, India has languished as the poor relation to China in the minds of UK investors.

This has seemed peculiar, given the Indian stock market has outperformed the Chinese market over the past five years (199% v 172% in sterling terms) and it is an equally, if not more, interesting investment story. However, two events this year should encourage investors to give India at least an equal weighting as China – the decisive election result in May and the budget announcement in July. Political concerns had weighed on the Indian market during the early stages of 2009, but when the election result was announced, markets leapt more than 20% on the news of the decisive victory f...