Why Indians are investing billions abroad amid shaky domestic stock markets
The Indian Express · Akash Mandal, Siddharth Upasani ·
Indians are on track to invest a record $4 billion in foreign stocks and debt in FY27 through the LRS route. Meanwhile, Indian companies’ direct investments abroad have also shot up.
Last week, artificial intelligence giant Anthropic filed documents with the US capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for its Initial Public Offering (IPO). Interest is sky-high, with Anthropic aiming for a valuation of up to $2 trillion. And while Indians may find it difficult to directly invest in the IPO, some will surely look to snap up some shares once the company is listed, possibly as soon as in two weeks’ time. Why? Because it might ‘pop’.
Starved of returns in the domestic stock market — the Nifty is still down 6% in 2026 despite a 7% surge over the last week — Indians are increasingly investing abroad to the tune of billions of dollars. In fact, 2026-27 may see these investments in foreign equity and debt cross $4 billion for the first time.
According to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), investment in equity and debt under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) was at $1.73 billion in April-August 2026, averaging just under $350 million per month. More importantly, the $1.73 billion invested abroad in the first five months of the fiscal is more than double the $823 million in the same period last year. For 2025-26 as a whole, the figure was $2.65 billion — these numbers are much smaller than what individuals invest domestically. In September alone, around $3.4 billion was put in the domestic stock market via Systematic Investment Plans, or SIPs, of mutual funds.
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