Jupiter India, managed by Colin Croft and Avinash Vazirani, and the India Capital Growth trust, run by Tridib Pathak and Gaurav Narain, both surged in popularity among retail investors on the ii platform last month.
India Capital Growth was the fourth most-bought trust, and Jupiter India the ninth most-popular fund.
Kyle Caldwell, collectives specialist at interactive investor, pointed to India’s number of attractions as an investment destination.
“It has a young population, with around one-quarter of the world’s under-25s living in India. Its young population is part of an expanding middle class, which is expected to fuel economic growth in the decades to come,” he said.
The Indian stock market has been the best-performing index post-Covid, up 146% since 3 April 2020, according to ii data. The next-best performer by comparison is the Nasdaq, which is up 97%.
JP Morgan to add Indian government bonds to emerging markets debt index
However, Caldwell cautioned on the importance of diversification: “As a single-country emerging market, investors need to bear in mind it is an adventurous area. With such funds it is prudent to treat them as satellite holdings to add some spice.”
Fundsmith Equity was the most bought fund on the platform during September, with Scottish Mortgage the most bought trust.
September’s ii data also showed some familiar trends, such as the dominance of income picks, the resurgence of tech, and the popularity of some of the biggest blue chip names.
Retail investors continued to back FTSE 100 favourites such as Legal & General, Lloyds, Rolls Royce, Aviva, and Glencore, which maintained their dominance in the top ten most bought stocks.
High dividend yields remain a magnet for income-hungry investors, with new entrants to the most bought list, M&G and Phoenix Group, both offering yields exceeding 10%.
Fundsmith Equity and Scottish Mortgage retain bestseller crowns in August
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at ii, said the dominance of FTSE 100 stocks in September is partly thanks to the high dividends on offer within the UK blue-chip index as investors go “on the hunt for income”.
AIM-listed oil and gas exploration firm Pantheon Resources also found itself on the list of most popular stocks on the ii platform following a bullish estimate of nearly one million barrels of oil for its Kodiak Field in late August, helping to send shares sharply higher over the last month.
Retail investors were slightly split on tech during September, with less appetite for tech funds but more support for tech direct equities, with US tech giants Nvidia and Tesla, mainstays of ii investor portfolios in recent months, retaining prominent portfolio positions.
