By Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy
Sept 7 (Reuters) - Foreigners turned net sellers of Asian
shares in August as relations between China and the United
States remained fragile, while Indian equities drew in foreign
funds for a fourth straight month, with net inflows of $6.3
billion.
Cross-border investors sold a combined net total of $6.25
billion worth of equities in Taiwanese, South Korean, Thai,
Indonesian and Philippine stocks in August, data from stock
exchanges showed.
Manishi Raychaudhuri, Asia-Pacific equity strategist at BNP
Paribas, put the concerns down to the latest bout of tensions
between Washington and Beijing over the tech sector.
Tech-heavy South Korean and Taiwanese equities saw outflows
of over $2 billion each, while Thailand and Indonesia had
outflows of $875 million and $583 million, respectively.
Concern over India's coronavirus outbreak has continued to
grow, with officials easing restrictions on business and
movement at a time when new infections are heading for 100,000
per day. The country, however, remains one of the region's poorest
economies and a cheap destination for both manufacturing and
service sector outsourcing. Facebook and Google are among
players to have followed Amazon in planning to pour more money
into its economy this year. After outflows earlier in the year, portfolio investment
appears to be following, betting that a growing middle class in
the world's single largest consumer base outside China will
drive future corporate returns.
"Recent reforms like the opening of coal and mining sector,
import substitution and measures to incentivize domestic
manufacturing for defense are expected to help the economy
recover," said Sandip Khetan, a partner at consultancy EY.
With investors globally flush with the billions of extra
funds pumped through the financial system to ease this year's
dramatic downturn, BNP's Raychaudhuri said the diverse range of
stocks investable in Mumbai also helped.
"Most other Asian peer markets do not offer investors such a
diverse array of sectors to choose from," he said.
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Foreign investments in Asian equities https://tmsnrt.rs/3lKhL5I
Asian countries' daily new coronavirus cases https://tmsnrt.rs/34WSwHd
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