Chris Wood hikes exposure to Indian equities despite expensive valuation

Wood believes that India will, sooner rather than later, be included in global bond indices as a result of recent liberalisation measures.

The sharp up move from the March 2020 low in the absence of a meaningful recovery in corporate earnings has made Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies sound caution against the expensive valuation of the Indian equity market. Yet, he has increased exposure to Indian equities in his Asia Pacific ex-Japan relative-return portfolio by one percentage point. Wood had recently hiked allocation to Indian equities in October 2020.

“The Indian stock market is not cheap with the market trading at 21.6x 12-month forward consensus earnings. But the positive point is that the multiple should have a tendency