Overseas investors (FIINNET) bought a net 251 million rupees (FIINNET$) ($4.75 million) of Indian stocks on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, taking their investment in the equities this year to 10.3 billion rupees, according to the nation’s market regulator. Foreigners bought 18.5 billion rupees of shares and sold 18.3 billion rupees over the two days, according to data from the Securities & Exchange Board of India. They bought a net 20.9 billion rupees of bonds in the period, the data show. Offshore funds pulled out 27.1 billion rupees from local equities last year, compared with record flows of 1.33 trillion rupees in 2010, as Europe’s debt crisis threatened the global economy and cooled demand for emerging-market assets. That led to a 25 percent drop in the BSE India Sensitive Index (SENSEX), the second worst annual loss, and sent the rupee to an all-time low. India’s $1 trillion stock market, Asia’s fifth-biggest, is influenced by flows from overseas. Inflows from abroad surged to a record in 2010, making the Sensex the best performer among the world’s top 10 markets. The largest-ever outflow in 2008 led to the biggest annual slump of 52 percent. Foreign funds (FIINFIIN) have placed 4.454 trillion rupees in stocks and 1.283 trillion rupees in bonds since they were allowed into the country in 1993. They invested 421 billion rupees in bonds last year. The regulator provides data on shares bought and sold by large investors, including trades in the primary and secondary markets, with a delay of at least a day. To contact the reporter on this story: Paresh Jatakia in Mumbai at pareshj@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net

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