Share Market

MUMBAI: The multi-year bull run in Indian stocks is likely to continue in 2008 and an expected slowdown in the US may make more foreign investors see domestically-driven India a safe haven, JPMorgan Asset Management said on Wednesday.

Concerns in U.S. will raise "nervousness in developed economies" in 2008 but India stands to gain, the Indian fund arm of JPMorgan said in its factsheet for December.

"Due to the low level of exposure of the Indian economy with the U.S. and strong domestic growth fundamentals, we believe the Indian market may be increasingly viewed as a relatively safe haven by international investors," it said.

The U.S. economy has been under pressure due to tightening of credit markets, a weakening housing market and poor job data. The Fed has lowered its benchmark lending rate by 100 basis points since mid-September in a bid to boost the economy.

The firm, which entered the rapidly growing Indian fund industry last year and managed assets worth about 26 billion rupees at December-end, said any aggressive rate cuts in the U.S. was likely to benefit the Indian markets.

"We expect the trend of growing interest in Indian equities, both by domestic and foreign investors, will likely continue in 2008," the Indian fund arm of JPMorgan (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said.

Indian stocks rose 47.15 percent in 2007, recording their sixth straight year of increase and strongest growth in four years on record fund inflows and strong corporate results.

Foreign funds, which played a major role in propelling India's markets to record highs during the year, bought more than $17 billion of equities in 2007, the highest in a single year.

PORTFOLIO SHIFT

The fund house went underweight on financial stocks in December from an overweight position a month earlier and mainly bought battered information technology stocks in the JPMorgan India Equity Fund.

Exposure to the financial sector dropped to 20.48 percent of the assets from 22.9 percent in November, the factsheet showed.

The firm raised exposure to tech stocks to 6.45 percent of the assets in December from 4.7 percent a month earlier, also bringing India's No. 2 software exporter Infosys Technologies in its top-10