Foreign funds invest $564 m in four days

“New foreign investors have started coming. Japanese investors who were investing heavily in India have now started putting money in India in a big way,” said a dealer.

Japanese investors are turning away from China where stock market indices have underperformed. The Shanghai Composite, which accounts for 68 per cent of China’s equities by value, has lost 45 per cent since the start of 2001 and is near an eight-year low, hindered by concern that the government will flood the market with part of about $250 billion of state-owned shares.

As many as five funds focussing on Indian stocks have opened in Japan since September. Japan’s 34 million individual investors who buy and sell a combined $1.2 trillion of stocks a year. As interest rates have remained close to zero since March 2001 in Japan, investors are seeking higher returns in emerging markets.

Market circles say most of the FII purchases in the last week are from investors based in Japan. Infosys’ second sponsored ADS also received good subscription from Japanese investor this year.

Sensex falls by 25 points

MUMBAI: Dalal Street snapped its four-day winning streak on Thursday as profit-booking took centrestage after a sharp recent surge in share prices. The barometer BSE Sensex lost 25.58 points or 0.36 per cent to settle at 7,119.76. The S&P CNX Nifty shed 3.50 points or 0.16 per cent to 2,183.85.

The fall in index heavyweights like Infosys Technologies, ITC, Reliance Industries (RIL), ONGC and ICICI Bank weighed on the barometer index. A number of Sensex constituents ended in the red. Yet, there still was a lot of strength on the bourses. For, there was solid buying in the stocks of two-wheeler makers, PSU banks, shipping, oil exploration and select cement companies. — ENS