Indian stocks are due a catch-up

With India's BSE Sensex index up by 50% since the March lows, local investors appear to have caught stockmarket fever. Foreigners are also joining in too.

Narendra Modi © PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images
Narendra Modi: an expert in the art of sweet-talking
(Image credit: © PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images)

“A sense of malaise” hangs over India, says Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times. The country is the world’s second worst-hit nation by the number of reported Covid-19 cases, and a tough lockdown earlier this year wrought immense economic and social pain. The economy shrank by an astounding 23.9% in the three months to June compared to a year before. Up to 200 million people risk falling into poverty.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proven an expert in the art of sweet-talking investors while failing to deliver on his promises, says Ritesh Kumar Singh in the Nikkei Asian Review. Recently his political formula has boiled down to “cash handouts” and culture wars.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.