Monday, May 18, 2009

India's Sensex Index Jumps 17.3%

India's Sensex Index jumped 17.3% this morning before trading was halted. Usually markets halt trading to deal with very large declines. This has to be the only time that I can recall an entire stock market being shut down because of a massive upward movement.

And the cause of the jump? Politics. Prime Minister Singh effectively won the Indian election by taking enough votes to form a government without including the communist party. The expectation is that this will give Singh the ability to implement some much needed reforms - reforms which should have been adopted decades ago.

Needless to say, commentators and analysts are tripping over themselves to predict how much further the market will run when it re-opens tomorrow.

As for the private portfolio, I hold both of the HK listed India ETFs (2810 and 2836) and benefited nicely from today's jump in the underlying index. :-)

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