Mumbai: Overseas investors have dumped Indian equities worth over ₹1.8 lakh crore so far in 2026, surpassing the total for all of 2025, as a weaker rupee, elevated oil prices and limited AI investment opportunities in the country fuelled risk-off sentiment.

Selling in local equities – the second highest across Asia and emerging markets after South Korea – is the most by overseas investors in the first four months of any calendar year, show data from ETIG and Bloomberg.

The unabated outflows are an extension of selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) since September 2024, when sentiment on India turned sour after corporate earnings growth failed to match rich share valuations. In 2025, FPIs pulled ₹1.6 lakh crore out of stocks, the highest in a year until then.

“Foreign outflows were driven by a host of factors like weak rupee and deceleration in earnings momentum,” said Sriram Velayudhan, senior vice president, IIFL Capital Services. “South Korea and Taiwan saw increased foreign interest as these offered bets on the AI and semiconductor theme at cheaper valuations.”

Just as it looked like withdrawals were tapering off this year, the West Asia conflict that began February 28 revived the flight to safety, with foreign investors stepping up their selling amid the record fall in the rupee and worries about the impact of higher oil prices on the currency.

Risk-off Sentiment in Asia
“At the end of 2025, the valuations in India were relatively less expensive and in the first two months of 2026, the flows were largely neutral, but the thesis changed quickly in March as global investors sold shares worth around $12 billion in India,” said Hari Shyamsunder, VP and senior client portfolio manager, Franklin Templeton.
The renewed selloff in March struck not just India but also global AI favourites such as Taiwan and South Korea. The intensity of the selling across Asian markets led to South Korea displacing India as the most sold market in the region in 2026 with outflows at $35.3 billion. India was next at $19.75 billion followed by Taiwan at $8.50 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Russia has received the most foreign capital investment at $20.6 billion, followed by Brazil at $11.8 billion.
“The foreign selling was sharper in these markets at about $21-26 billion, which clearly marked the risk-off sentiment as Asia emerged vulnerable due to the West Asia war,” said Shyamsunder.

Selling abated in Taiwan and South Korea in April but India is yet to see renewed inflows in the absence of the AI theme, he said.

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Moelis & Company (MC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call April 29, 2026 5:00 PM EDT

Company Participants

Matthew Tsukroff – Vice President of Investor Relations
Navid Mahmoodzadegan – Co-Founder, Founding Partner, CEO & Director
Christopher Callesano – Chief Financial Officer

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Conference Call Participants

Devin Ryan – Citizens JMP Securities, LLC, Research Division
Alexander Bond – Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division
Ryan Kenny – Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Kenneth Worthington – JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division
James Yaro – Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division
Brennan Hawken – BMO Capital Markets Equity Research
Brendan O’Brien – Wolfe Research, LLC
Michael Brown – UBS Investment Bank, Research Division
Nathan Stein – Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division
Daniel Cocchiara – BofA Securities, Research Division

Presentation

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Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Moelis & Company First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. To begin, I’ll turn the call over to Mr. Matt Tsukroff.

Matthew Tsukroff
Vice President of Investor Relations

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Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Moelis & Company’s First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. On the phone today are Navid Mahmoodzadegan, CEO and Co-Founder; and Chris Callesano, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I would like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time to time in the Risk Factors section of Moelis & Company’s filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. Firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our comments today include references to certain adjusted financial measures. We believe these measures, when presented together with comparable GAAP measures, are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with developing GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the

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Unknown Attendee

Welcome to the Platform Summit. So this second session is dedicated to the Verve Group SE, and I would like to welcome CEO, Remco Westermann, who will give us some insights about Verve’s platform business, followed by a Q&A session. And with that, we’re excited, and I hand over to you, Remco.

Remco Westermann
CEO & Director

Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here. Yes, I would like to present the company and then afterwards, of course, give time for questions, I would start. I would go to the first page, give an overview of what we do or what our focus is. Let me start with our mission. Let’s make media better. We think that in advertising, which is our core market, there is still a lot of money wasted that can be spent a lot better. And that’s the reason that we have, let’s say, are running this company and see a lot of potential in further growing it and helping advertisers to spend their budgets better as well as help publishers to monetize their inventory better.

So that’s the first one of our, let’s say, core focuses is really enabling better outcomes for advertisers and publishers. With responsible advertising solutions, as mentioned, there’s a lot broken in this segment. Therefore, there’s a lot of other things happening. IDs are disappearing. So in that sense, we focus on making it really, yes, quality, good, effective advertising. And then we’re focusing on emerging channels. There’s a lot of channels where you can advertise, a lot of traditional channels like Linear TV, for example. But we’re focusing on the channels where really eyeballs, where people are moving, which is mobile