Morgan Stanley India Investment Fund, Inc. (IIF)

All Comments on IIF

  • commenter
    affinor
    Aug 29 05:08 AM
    Outlook for the Indian Economy [view article]
    Very well written article. But I do feel one aspect of rising inflation has been missed by the author.

    Considering that vehicle ownership in india is not very large, a lot of inflationary pressure comes from agricultural commodities. With the rising food prices, there has been a significant increase in investment in agriculture as evident from the agri export numbers. It is however hard to accurately incorporate contribution from this into the GDP as a lot of commodities (esp vegetables) are a part of a very disorganized and local market. This contribution however is vital in the long run in distributing income far from the financial centers in the metros. As long as the government is not too punishing on the export-import policies, a growth of even 7% with the added agri contributions should be better for India     Reply
  • commenter
    FreddieBoy
    Aug 23 09:27 PM
    Indian Inflation Accelerates Again [view article]
    India will always be a country that has POTENTIAL. The have a huge bureacracy that will never let this country reach its true potential. China is kicking their butt Reply
  • commenter
    jude
    Aug 21 02:33 PM
    Outlook for the Indian Economy [view article]
    One reason why CMIE estimates are optimistic is that the Government is its largest client. In fact, I know that many Government departments give their data to CMIE to publish, and then call the data "CMIE data". CMIE would certainly now want to annoy its biggest client by projecting low growth or high inflation. Reply
  • commenter
    EmergingFin
    Aug 21 11:34 AM
    Indian Inflation Accelerates Again [view article]
    Nice article and good research - I am an Indian and believe in the India growth story but there are some major headwinds in the way to realize the growtn story ---- rising oil and resulting impact on inflation, rising deficit and elections down the road Reply
  • commenter
    warren_buffe
    tt_student
    Aug 19 03:45 AM
    Indian Inflation Accelerates Again [view article]
    Well researched article, I liked it ! Reply
  • commenter
    TopForeignSt
    ocks
    Aug 18 09:01 PM
    My Website
    Indian Inflation Accelerates Again [view article]
    Wage raises like 20+% for millions of government servants on top of the millions of $s loaned to farmers waived by banks are not good for India's future. Reply
  • commenter
    Qniform
    Aug 18 06:56 PM
    Single Country Emerging Markets ETFs, ETNs and Closed-End Funds [view article]
    They left out the Swiss Helvetica Fund (SWZ, I think) the only single country CEF for Switzerland I know of. Reply
  • commenter
    Beabaggage
    Aug 18 01:00 PM
    Don't Write off the Gold and Commodities Bull Run [view article]
    Sharp corrections in commodities are not unusual. Follow Louise Yamada, technician, for years. She is still bullish on most although advising tight stops with long term support level in gold at around 760. Rising costs in the supply chain make incremental and marginal production expensive so cap ex and mines with high cost will be put on hold. Best way to play is basket of junior minersin safe countries like NXG, PAL,CDE, etc. (long all) which have been beaten up but have good cash, no debt and low cost mines coming on line or in production with little capex needed. Harry Dent says this pullback is/was expected this summer and get ready for the major spike to come. Best thing is to average in costs. Indian/Chinese/Russian... consumers will view gold at 800 cheap compared to 950-1000 and support demand.
    very good article enjoyed it. Especially re wages-- SWC recent report says shortage of labor in mines-- they produce plat/paladium in Montana and these workers can shift to Oil/Gas for shale or other mines. (Long SWC.)     Reply
  • commenter
    ref
    Aug 18 08:00 AM
    Don't Write off the Gold and Commodities Bull Run [view article]
    If demand is a real demand,
    The price of commodity will not fall so much in one month.     Reply
  • commenter
    CLH
    Aug 17 08:38 PM
    Don't Write off the Gold and Commodities Bull Run [view article]
    When prices of everything are going down --farmers will grow more to make up the difference --trying to keep up their profits. This of course only makes prices drop more. You dont seem to understand how the market works. Dont forget fertillizer and labor will also go down.

    I have to laugh when you say labor wont willingly except a lower wage. Ask the airlines and many others who are excepting less. They have NO choice.     Reply
  • commenter
    techy
    Aug 14 05:31 PM
    Outlook for the Indian Economy [view article]
    Really nice article.

    here are my doubts about india:
    1. Politicians as always, and everywhere, dont care about long term benefits to the country or society, hence they are not solving infrastructure problems which is becoming a bottleneck for growth.
    2. private investment in infrastructure is very risky (bangalore-mysore freeway is mired in red-tape since 7-8 years) hence i dont see infrastructure improving much.
    3. in china thats is never a issue, its get done by the party, and it does appear that the party is interested in promoting china as a super power, its not the case in india (they are busy looting for themselves till they are in power).

    i am not an economist hence i am clueless about the problems infrastructure presents to economic growth, please shed some light?

    India has gone through a real estate boom, which maybe going bust right now. most of it was done with atleast 10-20% down payment, but if there is any pressure on jobs, we can see defaults go through the sky since most people spend almost 50% of income to service the mortgage.
    Reply
  • commenter
    Sharad
    Mistry
    Aug 13 02:07 AM
    The Indian Economy and Gold Imports [view article]
    My heartiest thanks to your extremely realistic situation of India as a whole. With my similar views, I had felt lonelier by the day and was almost like an outcast from my financial journalistic community who has been trained by their bosses to only look at the brighter sides of the corporate life. Well, I pray that this oncoming painful times positively and proactively stirs up the senses of our so-called upwardly mobile middle-class masses that have been intoxicated and numbed by the excessive consumerism spewed by rising income levels. Can you initiate a nation-wide dialogue in this direction? Reply
  • commenter
    Edward Hugh
    Aug 11 01:28 AM
    My Website
    Outlook for the Indian Economy [view article]
    Hello again everyone,

    You raise some interesting points.

    Sadpuppy2

    "So to summarize - yes, but not yet?"

    Exactly. Just give this a little time. India has waited patiently over half a century, a couple more years isn't the end of the world.

    Hi Yank,

    "The "wild card" here is the future direction of oil prices. It is very hard for me to get behind the recent spike in the US dollar (USD) as making the case for much lower oil prices."

    I agree completely. And remember, the higher dollar means a lower euro, so even though the dollar price is down, the euro one isn't down anything like so much.

    But basically energy and food prices aren't being driven up by relative currency movements, but by long term growth dyanamics. A very important - and very populous - set of emerging market economies have just "broken loose" from the poverty to which they had been chained, and they are now growing very rapidly, at the same time as the "resource constraint" on food and energy means that the OECD countries are headed for some years of sub-par growth (aka stagflation). What this basically means is that the win-win increasing returns dynamic works as a strong tailwind for many of these emerging economies as investors can get both currency appreciation and stronger growth out of these economies and for some years to come.

    Obviously the market can eventually correct for the food and energy supply constraint, but this needs time. Simply bringing a new generation of nuclear power plants on line would seem to need between now and 2020, and the sort of horizon is going to apply to effective alternative energy passenger transport. We have land available in places like Russia and the Ukraine, but they are short of people, so unless we open up globalisation to population movements like those seen at the end of the nineteenth century - which is unlikely for political reasons I think - then you are only going to see agricultural output grow through productivity yield, and hence demand is going to be constantly testing supply here as far forward as we can see.

    Obviously as global growth slows, prices fall back - which is what we are seeing now, half of Europe is, imho, already in recession, as, probably, is Japan, and all the emerging markets are slowing.

    But then, as prices drop back, countries like Brazil, India and Turkey simply accelerate again, as so prices will once more start to rise. I guess we can envisage this yo-yo type effect for some years to come now.

    One last point. Not all emerging markets are the same. If you want to know more about what I think here you need to go round some of my country level blogs, but Russia and the CEE countries are very overstretched already, and I think the risk of a serious slowdown in China later this year is definitely non-negligible. My guess is that India will ultimately win the "great China context" hands down.

    Hi dancingdiva,


    "History looks like it is repeating itself. What makes you think the high level of growth in 2009 and 2010 can occur under since interest rates are likely to remain at a high level to curb inflation? Or was it something other than the high interest rates that had an impact on the 1997 economy?"

    Well the key point that some people inside India are making - and I am endorsing - is that there has been a structural break in trend Indian growth around 2000. So the position looking backwards and looking forwards is not symmetrical.

    There are various reasons for this structural break. One of them is almost certainly demographic - the age structure of the population moved from being a tremendous drag to being a significant advantage as the median age rose.

    But also policies inside India have changed - slowly, but they have - and globalisation is offering significant advantages in things like capital flows and the possibilities for outsourcing.

    So I think we can't really compare the inflation and growth tendencies pre- and post- 2000, and also for the sort of reasons I have just explained to yank.

    Basically due to India's huge labour force reserve supply I think the "second round" inflation effects can be much better kept under control there than in many other countries, and if the government adopts some of the efficiency related structural reforms the possibility will exist to have inflation at a much lower level, interest rates down, and growth significantly up. At any rate this is the policy challenge, and I am optimistic that it will - at least partially - be risen to, whoever forms the next government. In other words, I see India going forwards, and not backwards. This is not Argentina or Venezuela.     Reply
  • commenter
    morgan420
    Aug 10 02:25 AM
    My Website
    The Indian Economy and Gold Imports [view article]
    Time will prove you wrong ... You have not seen the determination and dedication of the common people in this country.. India will continue to grow and prosper.. irrespective of the policy blunders of the central and state govts. And i will see you write about " How India withstood the global recession" soon. Reply
  • commenter
    dancingdiva
    Aug 10 01:43 AM
    Outlook for the Indian Economy [view article]
    Please note the Asian currency crisis was late in 1997 so I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it was not totally responsible for the sharp drop in 1997 GDP. Reply
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