Book Description

Global integration, the widening and intensifying of links between high-income and developing countries has accelerated over the years. Over the past few years, the financial markets have become increasingly global. The Indian market has gained from foreign inflows through the investment of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs). Following the implementation of reforms in the securities industry in the past few years, Indian stock markets have stood out in the world ranking. During the past few years India has emerged as one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The increasing interest of foreign players in the domestic broking industry is a testimony of the stock market’s growth. The Indian stock market has also received a thrust from rise in business transactions over the years, because of sharp drop in brokerage fees and transaction costs, launch of a slew of new products, and a robust regulatory environment. The importance of institutional investors’ particularly foreign investors is very much evident as one of the routine reasons offered by market analysts’ whenever the market rises, it is attributed to foreign investors' money and no wonder we see headlines like "FIIs Fuel Rally" etc., in the business press. This is not unusual with India alone as today’s most developed economies might have seen a similar trend in the past. Domestic institutional investors on the other hand being another important section of institutional investors are playing a vital role in the Indian stock market. These investors have emerged as important players in the Indian stock market and their activities are influencing the market. There are many instances where this section of investors has stabilized the market conditions on one hand whereas their moves took the market to destabilized position on the other hand. Therefore, both FIIs and DIIs have become the most important determinants in the functioning of the Indian stock market. Thus, increasing role of these institutional investors has brought both quantitative and qualitative developments in the stock market viz., expansion of securities business, increased depth and breadth of the market, and above all their dominant investment philosophy of emphasizing the fundamentals has rendered efficient pricing of the stocks. Hence, there is a need to examine how investments made by these two groups of institutional investors’ impact each other as well as stock market returns. This book is an attempt in that direction.