iShares MSCI India Small-Cap ETF

SMIN

Market cap $718M

India's top information technology companies are expected to report another subdued quarter, as AI-driven pricing pressure, weak client spending, and global geopolitical turmoil continue to weigh on growth, nine brokerages said.

Shares of Indian banks rose more than 1% on Tuesday, making them the top-performing sectoral gainers after the Reserve Bank of India issued detailed guidelines for a concessional foreign exchange swap facility that lenders can use for overseas borrowings. The move forms part of a broader package of measures announced by the central bank to attract foreign capital into the country at a time when India's economy is facing growth and inflation challenges.

Aggressive buy-sell dollar/rupee swap operations by the Reserve Bank of India over the past 10 days have pushed foreign exchange hedging costs to their lowest levels in two months, while contributing to a recovery in the rupee ahead of a closely watched monetary policy decision. One-year hedging costs have fallen sharply from a mid-May peak of 3.50% to 2.92%.

Venugopal Garre, Managing Director and Head of India Research at Bernstein, discusses India's AI ambitions. He sees opportunities in India's capital equipment and data center developer companies as ways for investors to play the proxy AI trade.

Brokerage firm Bernstein has retained its "Neutral" stance on Indian equities and maintained its year-end Nifty 50 target of 26,000, implying an upside of around 10% from Friday's closing levels. However, the brokerage cautioned that a combination of weak macroeconomic conditions, earnings downgrades and a revival in equity issuance activity could limit gains even if markets receive a near-term boost from easing geopolitical tensions.

India is likely ​to see below-average ‌monsoon rains for the first time ​in three ​years in 2026, ⁠the government said ​on Friday, ​stoking concerns over farm output and growth ​in Asia's ​third-largest economy.

The Reserve Bank of India's three-year dollar/rupee buy-sell swap auction received strong investor demand on Tuesday, with total bids reaching nearly $10 billion, almost double the size of the auction. The central bank accepted 141 bids in the foreign exchange swap auction, while receiving a total of 254 bids worth $9.8 billion.

James Thom, Senior Investment Director of Asia Equities at Aberdeen Investments, doesn't believe that the current weakness in the Indian rupee is a repeat of 2013 'taper tantrum' scenario. He adds that some level of government intervention is needed to shore up investor confidence in the country's currency and equity markets.

Asia's smaller companies have delivered stronger returns than the region's large-cap stocks over the past five years, while also offering lower volatility and broader sector exposure, according to HSBC Asset Management. The firm said Asia small-cap stocks outperformed their large-cap counterparts by nearly 3% annualised at the index level over the period.

Some parts of India are grappling with power cuts as record-breaking heat has pushed electricity demand ​to an all-time high in excess of 270 gigawatts, spurring a ‌government call for consumers to limit use.