Morgan Stanley upgrades Indian stocks

Morgan Stanley upgrades Indian stocksGlobal brokerage house Morgan Stanley has announced that it upgrading Indian stocks to 'equalweight', bringing some relief to the national economy after months of serious concerns expressed by the foreign investors over changing regulatory framework in India.

The latest report titled, 'Asia/GEMs strategy' showed that the India equities now carry the rating of 'equal-weight' after being rated underweight since early 2011. The global investment bank said that the equities in the country are now trading at a price-to-book multiple of 2.1x, which is close to the trough valuations of 2.0x in the 2002 and 2008.

The company has set a Sensex target of 19,954, which is much higher than the current levels. The report said that the equitieies in the country appear to be performing well compared to the MSCI emerging market indexes following a period of fall in oil prices even as there is `poor top-down domestic macro-environment'.

The Morgan Stanley India Strategy prefers technology and consumer discretionary doe stock picking and avoids state-owned banks. It suggests Maruti, Infosys and ICICI Bank among large cap and Dish TV, Tata Motors, DVR and Mindtree among mid cap stocks.

India's appears to be moving up on the radar of foreign investors in just days after the Prime minister took over the charge of the finance ministry. Foreign brokerages like Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and JP Morgan are moving to upgrade Indian stocks.