How does an Indian investor actually go global? This module is the starting point for doing it. It covers the ground rules and the groundwork, how money legally moves abroad, what markets and instruments are open to you, what it all costs, and how you will be taxed.
You now know how wide the world of markets really is. The natural next question is: what can your money actually become once you decide to invest abroad? It helps to answer this in two parts.
For a resident Indian investing globally, the asset class that matters in practice is equity, ownership in businesses. The law technically permits more than equity. You can, within limits, hold foreign debt and even buy overseas property, but for the ordinary investor going global, the realistic and sensible game is equity. Within equity, you have three instruments to reach it - Stocks, ETFs, and Mutual Funds. You already met each of them in Module 0.
A stock or a foreign ETF is typically something you access through an overseas route, which means your money is sent abroad to buy them.
A mutual fund, especially an international one, can often be reached without any of that, since you invest in rupees at home.
This difference, whether you go offshore or stay onshore, is the hinge on which most of the real decisions turn, and sending money abroad has its own rules, which the next chapter covers in full.
Each of these instruments is also reached through specific routes, direct foreign stocks, US ETFs, UCITS ETFs, GIFT City funds, international mutual funds, covered in Module 2. For now, it is enough to know the three instruments and to know that the routes to each are a separate question waiting downstream.
The clearest boundary is this: money sent abroad under Indian Law is meant for investment, not for speculation or leverage. So the following are off the menu.
One question. Less than 10 seconds.
Reinforce what you've learned before continuing to the next chapter.
Discussion