'Investing in select global markets an obvious choice'

Siddharth Srivastava, Head of ETF Product and Fund Manager at Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), initially began his career in equities but soon found his true passion in the structured, data-driven world of passive investing. With a portfolio of seven schemes and an asset base of Rs 7,000 crore, Srivastava has played a pivotal role in shaping Mirae Asset's passive investing strategy. In this interview, he underscores why Indian investors should consider global markets, given the corrections in Nasdaq and S&P 500 in the past few weeks, the challenges faced by ETF investors and how they can avoid paying exorbitant premiums while investing in them. How should lay investors select, for example, between Hang Seng ETFs or FANG ETFs? The overall industry limit for international exposure is $7 billion for investing in overseas securities and an additional $1 billion for investing in overseas ETFs. Some time back, the industry reached these thresholds and was stopped from making fresh investments unless room was created because of redemptions. These limits have yet to be revised upwards. So, most international funds are closed for investments, including our very popular Mirae Asset FANG+ ETF, Mirae Asset S&P 500 Top 50 ETF and Mirae Asset Hang Seng Tech ETF. But since you've asked, I'll mention that when you're investing globally, you're investing for multiple reasons. One is to take exposure to stocks, themes and sectors not present in the domestic market. Is there any semiconductor company in India? The answer is no. Is there any company genuinely doing AI? No. Is there any robotics company at the global big tech level? No. So, investors get those exposures. Secondly, the correlation of international markets is lower compared to the domestic equity market, so it helps lower the risk of your overall portfolio. Thirdly, typically, the Indian rupee depreciates in the long term against the dollar, adding to the return you get if you invest in a stronger currency like the US dollar. I feel investing in selected international markets should be an obvious choice. A few weeks back, FANG had corrected along with NASDAQ and S&P 500 by almost 15-20