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Summary: Many Indian mutual funds investing overseas remain closed to fresh investments as fund houses run into overseas investment limits, though some SIPs have started reopening. We track the latest changes and examine global ETFs, where premiums to NAV can vary sharply.
This week the door swung both ways. Invesco will switch some existing SIPs back on from August 18. Meanwhile, the freeze deepened: PGIM shut its three international funds from August 8 and Edelweiss six from August 12, pushing the count of schemes with existing SIPs frozen from 19 to 28. One house reopening while others shut sounds contradictory. It isn't.
It comes down to one rule. India limits how much its funds can invest abroad, and most houses have used up their share. A fund stops taking money as its overseas holdings near that limit, and can reopen when investors sell and free up room. So PGIM and Edelweiss shut while Invesco reopened, working off the same rule.
But it is narrow. Only already-running SIP and STP instalments resume, and only in three of Invesco's four funds, its Global Equity Income, Pan European Equity and Global Consumer Trends funds of funds. The fourth, its Nasdaq-100 fund and the one most people want, stays shut, along with lumpsums, switch-ins and new SIP registrations. Invesco even warns it may pause these again if it nears the limit. So it could reverse. Across the whole space, only Baroda BNP Paribas Aqua still takes a new SIP registration.
So if your own SIP in a global fund is on pause, it is not gone for good, as Invesco's reopening shows. You just cannot say when it resumes, so keep an eye on your fund house's notices.
One option that stayed open is a diversified fund that already holds a slice abroad, so its SIP never paused. We listed those funds here. Since then, DSP Healthcare has fallen below our 10 per cent mark, as it cut its overseas holding from 17 to 9 per cent by selling out of Illumina, a US company that makes DNA-testing machines. Remember these overseas slices sit within the same overall limit, and funds trim or add to them over time, so the foreign bit can shrink or grow. Buy only if the fund suits your plan anyway, and treat the overseas exposure as a bonus.
Buying a global ETF on purpose is the other way to add foreign equity, and what you pay for it moves as unpredictably as the funds open and shut.
Some ETF premiums swing by the day. Others are just always high.
On seven days in 10, over the past year, the Motilal Oswal Nasdaq 100 ETF's premium sat more than five points from its 9.7 per cent average. Some days you paid a 3 per cent discount, others a 27.7 per cent premium. In the past fortnight it fell from 24 per cent on July 29 to 14.1 on August 4, then climbed to 19.5 on August 12, double its year average.
The Mirae Asset S&P 500 Top 50 ETF, which holds the 50 largest companies rather than all 500, is steadier. Almost two days in three its premium sat between 18 and 21 per cent, and it has never sold at a discount. But steady is not fixed: it dropped to 15.6 per cent on August 4 and was back at 20.3 by August 12, close to its usual 19.4 per cent toll.
One fund is cheap. The Nippon India ETF Hang Seng BeES premium has collapsed since late June, from 16.3 per cent on June 29 to 4.9 per cent on August 12, against a 14.9 per cent year average. No other ETF here trades below its own norm.
Global ETFs: Where the premium stands
| Global ETF | NAV (Rs) | Price (Rs) | Premium now (%) | 52-wk avg premium (%) | 52-wk premium range (%) | 52-wk avg daily trading (Rs cr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motilal Oswal NASDAQ 100 | 277.17 | 331.16 | 19.5 | 9.7 | −3.0 to 27.7 | 23.39 |
| Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ | 172.83 | 208.88 | 20.9 | 19.7 | 11.8 to 30.1 | 5.58 |
| Mirae Asset S&P 500 Top 50 | 67.27 | 80.96 | 20.3 | 19.4 | 14.5 to 23.7 | 1.6 |
| Motilal Oswal Nasdaq Q50 | 125.13 | 148.2 | 18.4 | 13.4 | −1.7 to 26.4 | 1.43 |
| Mirae Asset Hang Seng TECH | 19.51 | 23.7 | 21.5 | 19.6 | 12.4 to 36.4 | 2.52 |
| Nippon India Hang Seng BeES | 458 | 480.32 | 4.9 | 14.9 | 3.4 to 25.6 | 8.78 |
| NAV, price and premium as of August 12, 2026. The 52-week columns cover the year to that date. Premium is the market price above NAV, in per cent; a minus sign means a discount. NSE data only. | ||||||
With a jumpy fund like the Nasdaq ETF, the day you buy really matters, so check the premium before you commit instead of buying on autopilot. With the steady ones, there is no cheap day coming; the premium is just always high.
When a premium can swing 10 points in a fortnight and a fund can reopen one week and shut the next, timing any of this is a guess. So do not try to time it. The question that pays off is whether a global ETF belongs in your plan at all; if it does, buy it for that reason, not for a good week on the premium. The Value Research Fund Advisor is built to help you answer that.
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