The Lemon Fool

I have a small holding in this IT (JII) as a specific play on India. It doesn't pay dividends which quite suits me as I've got sufficient unprotected dividends. I'm thinking of buying more. Does anyone have any views on this - I'm half in/half out - I don't like its costs but I do like its focus.

Any thoughts welcome.

Steve

I wanted some exposure to emerging markets, but not china, russia etc. I settled on FEET Fundsmith Emerging Equity who have quite a high exposure to India, and make a compelling argument for investing in India.

It's certainly trying hard to modernise itself with tax and monetary change, which I would hope would work in investors favour.

Same, gone for FEET, India is the number one holding. It is not cheap but TS is a good stock picker.

India is my number one pick for a country to invest in over the next twenty years. It has much better demographics than China, an increasingly educated population which speaks English (the global language) and fairly strong property rights. There is much less of the arbitrary state corruption in India than China.

Whilst there are lots of bureaucratic obstacles to overcome, these are gradually being removed. The resilience of the Indian economy following the recent botched cancellation of high denomination banknotes is very nice to see - back in January the World Bank reduced its Indian GDP growth forecast for 2017 from 7.6% to 7.0% as a result of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... pee-recall

I've held JP Morgan Indian for over ten years and expect to hold on for many years to come.

I agree. I have held this for some time and am currently up 75% and certainly would not sell. I would consider buying more if I wanted more exposure to India rather than buying a more general EM trust.

I cannot argue with the sentiments regarding India. A negative is that India is a lot of people's top pick so valuations are not cheap.

An alternative IT to JP Morgan India (JII) is Aberdeen New India (ANII). Hugh Young's Aberdeen Asset Management has a good reputation in Asia. ANII has a bit of a consumption tilt to the portfolio, and if you read the IT's reports you'll see some echoes of the themes Terry Smith focuses on with FEET and his main fund. I'd suggest that If India was to be a number one country pick for the next couple of decades, then (Kim Jong Nutter aside) Asian consumption might be the number one thematic pick for the same period, with India perhaps lying at the centre of this.

http://www.aberdeen-newindia.co.uk/itnewindia/

If ANII has lesser portfolio cyclicality than JII then it may perform better during trickier markets (such as the moribund years prior to Modi's election during which the Sensex was range-bound for years) but perhaps worse in booming ones. Both look decent choices for India-specific exposure.

I have been invested in Aberdeen New India (ANII) for about 5 years now and have been more than happy with its performance. I have 4% of my SIPP in this and rebalance when necessary.
Looking at performance JII is very similar so if you are confident about India, JII seems suitable.
One trust I occasionally look at is India Capital Growth (IGC) as I do have a strong bias towards smaller companies but everytime I see the annual charges I decide not to !
Depending on your other investments another trust which may be of interest (which I also hold 4% in) is Scottish Oriental Smaller Cos (SST) Not a pure India play but it has 24% in India (May 2017 Factsheet)