While U.S. equities are pushing up toward new highs, developing country stocks lagged global markets Tuesday, with small-cap India exchange traded funds among the worst performers.
After the impressive surge following Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi’s win in the recent general elections, India small-cap ETFs, including Market Vectors India Small-Cap Index ETF (NYSEArca: SCIF), EGShares India Small Cap ETF (NYSEArca: SCIN) and iShares MSCI India Small-Cap ETF (NYSEArca: SMIN), were the worst performing funds Tuesday. [Small-Cap ETFs to Play India’s Post-Election Growth Opportunity]
SCIF plunged 7.8%, SCIN plummeted 5.8% and SMIN declined 4.2% on Tuesday. Nevertheless, SCIF is still up 54.6% year-to-date while SCIN is up 47.7% and SMIN is up 39.5%. SCIF, which has the largest allocations toward small-cap stocks, saw the largest swings this year.
“Market is getting into some sort of correction mode now after the election rally,” Deven Choksey, managing director, KR Choksey Securities, said in a Reuters article. “Now the optimism needs to be matched with the fundamentals. I think market will start counting for the next events such as (macro) policy announcements and RBI policy.”
Traders were engaging in the time-honored tradition of profit taking after the impressive run this year. Investors fueled the rally in India’s stock market on hopes that the business friendly opposition party would come into power during the elections.
After the win, investors are now in a holding pattern, waiting on Modi to deliver what he promised during his campaign, Bloomberg reports.