The Nifty 50 advanced 6.5% while the BSE Sensex rose 6.47% during the month
India stocks were among Asia-Pacific’s top-performing markets in May, even as the country continues to grapple with tens of thousands of new cases every day.
For the month, the Nifty 50 advanced 6.5% while the BSE Sensex rose 6.47%.
The old phrase ‘go away and sell in May’ wasn’t true — at least for this month, said Tuan Huynh, who is chief investment officer for Europe and Asia-Pacific at Deutsche Bank International Private Bank. In the Indian case, I think it is relatively surprising.
The markets seem to like to differentiate between economic and obviously corporate earnings development versus then the rise of the new cases, he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.
U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs is “overweight” on India, and expects stocks there to outperform.
Markets tend to, as they say, live in the future and not in the present, Timothy Moe, co-head of Asia macro research and chief Asia-Pacific equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC last week.
He pointed out that there’s a very concerning humanitarian crisis in terms of a Covid surge in India. However, the market is basically looking through that and expecting the rate of infections to come down, which indeed has taken place.
Meanwhile, Vietnam was Asia-Pacific’s best-performing market in May, with the VN Index climbing 7.15% for the month.
The gains came despite Vietnam’s Covid situation taking a turn for the worse in recent weeks. State-run media reported that social distancing measures were imposed in the country’s business hub Ho Chi Minh City starting Monday this week.
Elsewhere, stocks in Taiwan took a beating in May as rising cases of domestic infections prompted tighter restrictions.
The Taiex in Taiwan was Asia-Pacific’s worst performing market in May, and dropped 2.84% for the month.
