A Citigroup report says India's stock market remains the most expensive in Asia-Pacific region outside Japan despite a sharp downturn in the past few weeks.
NEW DELHI: India's stock market remains the most expensive in Asia-Pacific region outside Japan despite a sharp downturn in the past few weeks, international brokerage firm Citigroup said on Friday.
"India continues to be the least attractive market from our perspective, by a significant margin. Although composite momentum has turned positive, India still looks very expensive," Citigroup said in its latest report on Asia-Pacific markets.
Singapore is the top ranked market on an aggregate relative basis, and although valuations are stretched, long-term momentum is strong. Citigroup said it believed the market was attractive compared to its Asia Pacific peers.
Malaysia and China are in the 'Glamour' category, expensive but with a strong momentum.
"India remains at the bottom of the pile, with a marginal improvement in momentum due to flat earnings revisions, but relatively poor valuation scores keep it expensive," Citigroup analysts said in the report.
The country's stock market benchmark BSE Sensex has fallen more than 1,000 points in the past few trading sessions following concerns related to the US subprime crisis.
According an earlier report by Citigroup, India was the overall most expensive market in the region for 2007 after considering various metrics like price-to-earnings (PE) ratio, book value, cash flow, return on equity and enterprise value.
Citigroup had termed India more expensive than China, Hong Kong, Philippines and Australia, while it named Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia as cheapest.
Analysts at Citigroup had said in their Asia Macro Investigator report that India has "lofty valuations both relative to its own historical levels and other markets".
The Sensex suffered a plunge of 541 points in the last week of July and another blow shaved off 615 points on August 1. The index fell 232 points on Friday to settle at 14,868 points.
This week the domestic market fell on cues from Europe where markets turned weak after Frances biggest bank BNP Paribas suspended withdrawals from three mutual funds on concerns related to the US subprime crisis.
In India, total investors' wealth, measured in terms of the cumulative market capitalisation of all listed entities, has grown to about Rs 44,48,662 crore from about Rs 27,12,000 crore a year ago on July 21, 2006.
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