Indian shares climbed on Thursday after the release of a health check on the country’s economic health. Standard & Poor’s said the country has all but eliminated economic vulnerabilities, a big achievement for any country — but most of the big metrics for India still show weak growth prospects. This downward revision in growth prospects, while not so terrible if correct, seems unlikely to excite anyone.
The effect of this news was largely priced in by the markets, and any further upward move seems to be driven by extreme optimism over ongoing reform in India, or the reassurance that a weak rupee will help export-driven sectors like manufacturing.
All these factors imply that any further correction would bring in investors only for the sake of justifying their bets — this is not actually a good time to be buying India. Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. was one stock that managed to defy this general trend.
The stock gained 0.92 percent on Thursday as Sensex rose 0.34 percent. However, with the Sensex falling 8.84 percent so far this year and India’s current account deficit showing no signs of shrinking, we can reasonably guess that the stock market is headed downward.
