Investing in India

This is from an old article.

If you're trying to invest in India from America, you might have reognized that your options are limited or non-existent. India is the world's second most populated country with roughly one billion people. In addition to its population, its economy has also recently emerged as showing incredible growth. As of 2003, the country's GDP (a measure of its economic output) is growing at a rate of seven percent. Despite this growth, only two stocks allow you to invest in Indian companies from America: the India Fund (Ticker IFN) and the Morgan Stanley India Investment Fund (Ticker IIF). Both of these are exchange traded funds (ETFs). They are basically mutual funds that trade like stocks during the day. More information can be found at a good source for ETFs the ETFConnect website.
The website provides basic information like the fund's objective, its historical performance, and its top holdings in India.
One of the things to keep in mind when investing is the fund's premium or discount. Since you are buying a share of a group of holdings you may not be paying the actual worth of the holdings themselves. When an ETF is trading at a premium, the price of an ETF share is actually more than the value of the underlying assets. At a discount, the opposite is true. The ETFConnect website shows you the stock's recent permium or discount on the upper left. As of December 26, 2003, IIF is trading at a significant premium, and IFN is trading at a smaller premium.

12/26/2003