Indian stocks post steepest returns

Indian stocks, laggards among the world's biggest emerging-market economies in the first quarter, recovered to post the steepest returns in March as investors snapped up the cheapest shares in 13 years.

BlackRock Inc., UBS AG and billionaire Wilbur Ross predict more gains as record-low borrowing costs boost consumer spending in the world's second-most populous nation.

"We will be looking at more opportunities in India for sure," Ross, chairman of New York-based W.L. Ross & Co., said in an April 8 interview with Bloomberg Television. "Over a long period of time, it will be a very rewarding place, particularly since the market has come off so drastically."

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index, or Sensex, climbed 34 per cent since falling to its lowest level in more than three years on March 9. The advance beat increases among equity benchmark indices for Brazil, Russia and China, the biggest developing economies. Indian shares traded at 9.2 times profit, the cheapest since at least 1996, after the Sensex plunged 45 per cent since September, the worst slide among the so-called BRIC nations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and UBS.

The Zurich-based UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, forecasts the Sensex will gain 23 per cent in the next 12 months as lower interest rates spur demand for credit from ICICI Bank and cars made by Maruti Suzuki India.

BlackRock, the biggest publicly traded US money manager, predicts India's market may get a boost from domestic mutual funds that it estimates are holding as much as 20 per cent of their assets in cash.

Ross, 71, bought a stake in New Delhi-based SpiceJet in August. He made an unsuccessful bid this month for control of Hyderabad-based software exporter Satyam Computer Services.