India 4th biggest loser among emerging markets in Jan: S&P

A study by financial market data provider Standard and Poor's (S&P) says that India has become the fourth worst performer among all the emerging markets in the first month of 2008, with a loss of close to 16 percent. In 2007, the country emerged as one of the top performers in the equity markets.

"If investors thought the market could only go up, January's wake-up call pulled them back into reality," S&P said in its monthly update on world equity markets.



A bearish sentiment across both emerging and developed markets caused loss of a whopping $5.2 billion to the global stock markets, marking one of the worst ever starts to a new year, S&P said.

"There were few safe havens in January as 50 of the 52 global equity markets ended the month in negative territory, with 25 of them posting double-digit losses," S&P's Senior Index Analyst Howard Sliverblatt said.

While developed markets suffered a loss of 7.83 percent, the emerging markets registered a loss 12.44 percent during the month.

All the 26 developed markets posted negative returns, with 16 of them losing over 10 percent, reflecting a disappointing trend in emerging markets despite gains seen by Morocco (10.17 percent) and Jordan (3.11 percent).

Among emerging markets, Turkey was hit the hardest losing 22.70 percent followed by China at 21.40 percent. Russia lost 16.12 percent, while India lost close to 16 percent, S&P said.