Morgan Stanley India Investment Fund, Inc. (IIF)

All Comments on IIF

  • commenter
    sooth_sayer
    Jul 22 10:58 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    So there are 2 Vikrams...go figure!! All the arguments you both supply as justification were all given to Japan during the 70s and 80s. Tokyo has a very dense population too, and its land availability is less than in India, so why is the market there yet to recover in the past 20 years? The rupee has depreciated only 50% against the dollar in the past 20 years, and so is not the justification you are looking for. Also, I was only pointing out how inappropriate it is to call the US home appreciation a bubble. Most homes in the US have hardly gone anywhere in the past 20 years and yet the whole world is being told that there was this big bubble in the USA. And yet there are bigger bubbles in both percentage and dollar terms in the rest of the world that nobody wants to scrutinize. How ironic? Reply
  • commenter
    User 231098
    Jul 22 09:15 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    It was agood article. Slighly simple. Did not have the punch. However with most of the above criticism I do not agree. I am an investor in India & live there 4-6 months each year. Facts corroborates what has been written. ^BSESN can come down to 10000. However the brokers in India feel that it is poised to go up. Perhaps it will track the US ^DJI. Today IFN was up 7.8%, why?
    So commentors do not waste your time, do not critisize India & take advantage of India's opportunities & prosper. Good luck.     Reply
  • commenter
    User 231086
    Jul 22 09:04 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    >>The GDP growth estimate by the central bank has now been >>revised to 7.5% vs. an assumption of 8.5%.
    >>It is very attractive if you compare the following growth forecasts: >>US: 1.3%, Europe: 1.5%, Japan: 0.7%,
    This stupid statement I hear all the time - Has anyone actually compared the $$ amount tied to 7.5% vs $$$$$ amount
    to 1.3% in US!! My company grew 100% this year, my revenue went from 100K to 200K. While my friends company grew only 10% but his revenues grew 50 million to 55 million. Where did real money go ? in 100K or 5 million ?

    Further no point comparing to JAPAN, India has 1 billion people and the aspiring consumer list for cars, real estate, foreign goods etc is only growing everyday like China, and not compressing as in US / Europe and Japan. Std of living is already high in West! More people in India/China become richer every few years who can now afford luxury goods, while in the West it is saturated and cyclical, people start reducing consumption of big and small ticket items during downturns. That is why India/China are considered emerging growth markets..



     Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram
    Jul 22 08:36 PM
    My Website
    India: The Bear Case [view article]
    The communists are out! Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram
    Jul 22 08:20 PM
    My Website
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    sooth_sayer:

    Can you comment more about the Ponzi scheme? There is little or no seller financing in India; even bank led financing was a mirage less than a decade ago. Most of the money came from the unaccounted economy (black money) and transactions were conducted in all cash deals with people literally exchanging bags of cash.

    As the other Vikram(Vikram12) pointed out, you also have to look at real prices versus nominal prices. The Indian Rupee has been depressed for the past two decades that shows up in pricing.

    You also have to account for population density in India versus the USA. Land is relatively scarce in India and that will show up as higher premiums for homes, especially when compared to non-Metro/non-Coastal America where homes sell more on replacement value and not speculative value.

    Growth in real estate prices in rapidly growing emerging economies is a not exclusive to India. Rising incomes coupled with the availability of credit, and rapid urbanization increases the value of real-estate at a much larger rate than the GDP.

    Vikram12: Your comments about Gold is not easy for a non-Indian to understand. There used to plans to get the gold into circulation as capital but now that availability of capital is no longer a challenge they have been shelved. India is benefiting from the wealth effect of Gold which not many people factor in to their models.

    Today's vote of confidence will be good for the equity markets. Further the recovery in the US equity markets is going to be good for equities in the emerging markets as well. And BSE is trading in mid teens of trailing P/E. Much cheaper than the US market with much better growth prospects.     Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram12
    Jul 22 06:46 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    Land prices have gone up anywhere from 100 times to a 1000 times in the past 20 years in India.... Have you seen how the rupee has depreciated against the dollar over this period. Even though the Fed was recklessly printing money the doller gained in value.... every thing is relative in this case.... If Indians declare the amount of household gold they hold the rupee will appreciate like crazy and if we just let us assume tht the fed has to repay its investors then the dollar is worth a tissue papper Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram12
    Jul 22 06:39 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    sooth_sayer-- You seem to be jealous with asset price increases outside America... If You have been to India you can certainly notice how much potential increase in infrastructure is still possible. And by the way there is shortage of land in places like Bombay.
    you said "Nothing could be said to justify that, when you compare incomes, infrastructure and quality." i kind of agree with the point you make on infrastructure but you must not forget tht India has the most competitive manpower in the world and comparable to America... Your second point on income is incorrect because India has more increase yoy in real income than America. Americans have large spending habits whereas Indians are more conservative. And you seem to ignore the point i make about unaccounted equity which drives Indian housing market... There might be a correction in asset prices in India but you will not see foreclousures and building up of inventory which has been the case in America.....     Reply
  • commenter
    andyn
    Jul 22 06:33 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    Guys, instead of the infighting about the fundamentals, remember this forum is for investing and making money.
    The BIG news today is that the indian govt won the confidence motion and that means they will push all the pending deals.
    BUY IBN, EPI, PIN, TTM and/or IFN. Exit end of the year....
    should have a good percentage move b/w now and then.     Reply
  • commenter
    sooth_sayer
    Jul 22 11:39 AM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    Vikram, It is interesting that you can make a broad statement like "real estate will never go down in India", but when I point out that real estate went down in India in the 90s, you term it "generic". Real estate prices in India have gone up absurdly based on a ponzi scheme. It is completely leveraged, where speculators put down 5-10% down and then flip it over to the next speculator within weeks, if not days. Since money is not borrowed from banks to play this speculative game, perhaps banks are not in that much trouble, but that does not mean that the valuations are not absurd. It also means that very little equity is in these homes, as most people have been just speculating with their down payments.
    Let me clarify that there was NEVER a bubble in the USA, and what the media in the USA terms a bubble is basically just a tripling of home prices in TWENTY years in coastal areas. In the rest of the USA, home prices have only DOUBLED in the last TWENTY years. And this very meager appreciation is what they call a bubble, which is utterly ridiculous. The leftist media in the USA wants home prices to stagnate forever. Media in India, on the other hand, is a non-stop hype machine, getting more investors into the ponzi game. Land prices have gone up anywhere from 100 times to a 1000 times in the past 20 years in India, and compare that to 2-3 times in the USA. Even low quality apartments in most Indian towns cost more than even a decent single family home in a corresponding place in the USA. Nothing could be said to justify that, when you compare incomes, infrastructure and quality.     Reply
  • commenter
    Fellow IE
    Jul 22 08:36 AM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    I see a disconnect between these two statements:

    "FIIs have invested over 150 billion US dollars in the Indian Equity Market in the last decade, of which they redeemed only 7 billion US dollars in the last 6 months. This is 4.6% of the total dollar amount still invested in the Indian Stocks."

    "credit crisis back in the US and some of the FIIs started booking profits and sending money back to the home country. And this happened in a bit of a hurry leading to panic and finally a market crash."

    I don't think $7B is enough money to send back to US or any other country to recover from sluggish economy and banking crisis.

    I think Indian markets are too speculative and sentimental....I agree that the valuations were blown out and currently it is going through a correction phase and I wouldn't be surprised if BSE drops around 10K.     Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram12
    Jul 22 04:32 AM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    sooth_sayer - My point was - it is the concept of unaccounted money which drives the indian hosing market... i agree tht its percent as a whole has declined but still contributes a huge chunk... This is not the case with the present american crisis which was due to the birth of cheep money during the greenspan era which led to money flowing into real estate through exotic options or structured products. American husing bubble was a classic case of FASB not being able to catch up with financial engineering... Japan's housing boom was also led by cheep access to financial leverage... You may be right on the end result of a housing price deflation in india but the reason for the deflation do not look similar to tht of Japan or America... Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram
    Jul 22 12:55 AM
    My Website
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    sooth_sayer:
    1. Real Estate went down in India is a very generic statement. It may have corrected in some areas where it went up very quickly but there was no nationwide bust like we are currently seeing here in the USA.

    2. What we are seeing right now is a catch-up phase where the country is making up for almost 50 years of lost growth. Thanks to development in information availability, the process is getting accelerated quickly. To get a sense of the potential, India's per-capita income is about half of China's. So even if the per-capita GDP double's in ten years (about 7-8% CAGR), it will still be behind China's!

    3. The current real-estate boom in India is a result of:
    (i) Industrial/Urban Expansion: Agricultural land near urban centers which was once valued based on depressed agricultural prices, is now being valued in terms of the commercial value in a globally integrated economy.
    (ii) Development and expansion of credit facilities: Till very recently, buying a home in India required decades of savings, since credit availability was poor. In the past decade, as the banking sector developed and made credit available which led to the growth of the sector. Of course massive white-collar job growth helped the process along.

    But if you view real-estate prices on a national scale, outside the hot urban growth centers, they are nowhere near inflated. There is no nationwide bubble in real-estate or asset pricing.

    4. There is going to be massive infrastructure development in India in the next decade which not only is necessary to sustain growth, but like in China will likely be a driver of economic growth. There is enough private sector capital available to drive that since the economics are so well stacked up in the favor of investors. Gradually the political posturing which constrained infrastructure growth is also taking a back seat, with investors figuring out how to manage the politicians.

    I do agree with some posters that the author could have organized his thoughts better and made a more cogent case. however many of the comments here are completely off-base. There is uncertainty in India about the fate of the Central (Federal Government) but if the past offers any clue, there are going to be no negative policy changes; in fact the lull might allow some tougher measures to go the legislature.     Reply
  • commenter
    sooth_sayer
    Jul 21 11:02 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    Hey Vikram12, You are probably one of those that knows little about the past and is just rejoicing the present. Real estate prices in the 90s went down in India, so never say never. Also, what has happened in India in the stock market and in real estate in the current decade is a lot bigger of a bubble than what happened in Japan between 1970 and 1990. Japan also boasted an 8% annual economic growth during that period and land prices went up 500% (5 times) in those 20 years. Of course, that is nothing compared to the Indian bubble. All the bubbles burst in Japan in 1990 and since then, Japan has faced one of the most severe depression/deflations in the past 15+ years. India's turn is coming very soon. Those who ignore common sense and history and believe in never ending absurdity will wake up to reality pretty soon. Reply
  • commenter
    Vikram12
    Jul 21 09:45 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    DragonSlayer you need to get your concepts right... You just seem to be making a fool of yourself by stating India is a socialist country.... India has the oldest stock market in Asia and very good access to capital...If the increse in no of companies going public means socialism to you then you are confused bro... and may I ask which asset bubble are u refering here? Real estate ? stock markets? real estate can never go down in india bcause real estate is puchased through significant ammount of equity in india and not through leverage as supposed to America....stock markets will continue to well as along as we have sustainable economic growth which no wise person can deny in case of India.... for gods sake forget grammer and concentrate more on finance concepts.... Reply
  • commenter
    sooth_sayer
    Jul 21 07:04 PM
    India's Strong Growth Should Continue [view article]
    soothsayer
    Jul 21 06:59 PMClearly, the author has lost a lot of money in the crash from the absurd valuations of Indian (and Chinese) markets. He is trying to pump it up as much as he can in a desperate attempt. Percentages are very misleading, and it is easy for a 1 trillion dollar economy (which is what India's GDP is currently) to show a 8-10% return, especially when it is coming almost completely from foreign sources. The US economy is $15 trillion, and even if it grows just 1%, its GDP growth is more than that of India in dollar terms. The law of numbers makes it harder for bigger numbers to grow by bigger percentages. So beware all scamsters who rely on percentages alone. Also, just because FIIs invested so much recently into India does not mean they are right in their investment strategy. Many established institutions do things wrong. US banks were lending easy money to home buyers for the past 5+ years, and by the author's argument, they should have done that because they expected a strong housing market. That's not what happened in the US, and the banks are now in trouble. India is right behind, when the greatest real estate bubble in the Universe pops in its metros. Mark my words, the next decade is going to be very dark for India, when all the hype is removed, India will be exposed for it truely is, a corrupt, cheating nation.     Reply
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