Indian stock market vulnerable to the rise in Covid cases: Chris Wood

The renewed mobility restrictions in India, he believes, also increase the potential risk of a renewed deterioration in asset quality for banks

The Indian stock market is still potentially vulnerable in the absence of concrete evidence that the second wave has peaked, believes Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies. Yet, he has increased his exposure to Indian equities in his relative-return portfolio – bringing it back to where it was at the end of last quarter.

The overweight in Indian equities, Wood said, will be increased by 2 percentage points (ppt) to 14 per cent. This will be paid for by cutting the weight in China by 0.5 ppt and Malaysia by 1.5 ppt. He had trimmed exposure to