Emerging Markets on WebNotes

EM-focused mutual fund (India)

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An EM-focused (Emerging Markets) mutual fund is an Indian international fund category that provides exposure to emerging-market equities outside India. Most Indian EM-focused funds offer “ex-India” exposure to other developing-market economies via Fund-of-Funds structures investing in MSCI Emerging Markets ETFs. The category is part of the broader International funds family.

For Indian retail investors who already hold meaningful Indian equity allocation, EM-focused funds provide diversified exposure to other major EM economies (China, Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, etc.) without doubling up on India.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is the global benchmark tracking equity market performance across 24+ emerging-market economies, with India consistently among the top three weights alongside China and Taiwan. The index is constructed by MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International), the dominant provider of global investment indices, and is the reference standard for emerging-market portfolio management worldwide.

For Indian capital markets, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index is important because:

Foreign portfolio investor flows: FPIs investing globally use MSCI EM as their reference allocation. India’s weight in MSCI EM directly translates to passive-fund inflows into Indian equities.
India-focused funds: International India-focused mutual funds typically benchmark against MSCI India (a sub-index) or MSCI EM India.
Indian fund-of-fund schemes: Indian-resident investors accessing global emerging markets via India-resident mutual funds may use MSCI EM as the benchmark.

Index methodology

Constituent universe

The index covers:

Emerging markets mutual funds for Indian investors

Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Emerging markets mutual funds for Indian investors provide diversified emerging-market equity exposure typically excluding India (since the home market is already accessible directly). The category sits within the broader international mutual fund framework, with reference benchmarks including MSCI Emerging Markets Index and various Asia ex-Japan indices.

For Indian retail investors, emerging-markets mutual funds offer:

Cross-EM diversification: Spreading exposure across China, Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, South Africa, etc.
Sector breadth: Tech (Korea, Taiwan), commodities (Brazil), consumer (China).
Cycle positioning: EM-rotation tactical plays.

The category is smaller than US-focused funds in Indian retail interest but offers more diversified international exposure than country-specific funds.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The MSCI Emerging Markets Index (commonly abbreviated as MSCI EM) is a free-float adjusted market capitalisation-weighted equity index maintained by MSCI Inc. (previously Morgan Stanley Capital International), covering large- and mid-cap stocks across 24 emerging market (EM) countries. First launched in 1988, the MSCI EM is the most widely referenced benchmark for the emerging markets equity asset class globally, with over USD 1.7 trillion in assets benchmarked to it as of 2024. For Indian mutual fund investors, the MSCI EM Index is the benchmark used by fund-of-fund (FoF) schemes and overseas ETF feeder funds that invest in emerging markets equities.

Shankar Sharma

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Shankar Sharma is the co-founder and Vice Chairman of First Global, an Indian financial services, securities, and research firm co-founded with Devina Mehra. He is one of the more outspoken and independent voices in Indian capital markets, known for making sharply contrarian calls on Indian equities, global macroeconomics, and emerging markets, often at variance with the mainstream consensus view. While not a traditional mutual fund manager, First Global operates primarily as a securities broking and quantitative investment management firm rather than as an AMFI-registered mutual fund house, Sharma has been a highly visible figure in Indian financial markets commentary for over three decades and has exerted influence on how institutional and sophisticated retail investors think about Indian and global equity markets.