India's major online investment platforms are opening U.S. stock trading to millions of retail investors. As the Indian stock market continues to perform poorly, more and more investors are looking to diversify their investments into global assets.
Previously, only the wealthier Indians were able to access the US market and exchange-traded funds through global banks and wealth management companies.
The Indian investment platform Groww, which is responsible for the company's operations, and co-founder Harsh Jain informed CNBC that the platform launched a US stock trading feature earlier this month. According to the company, Groww accounts for more than 29% of the 46 million active stock brokerage investors in India.
Jain indicates that NVIDIA, SpaceX, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Micron, and Meta are the most popular companies among early users. The company has provided users with over 10,000 US stocks, exchange-traded funds, as well as trading of fractional shares.
According to data from the National Stock Exchange of India ( NSE ), Zerodha , which ranks second in terms of active customers with a 15% market share, has also begun testing the US stock access feature and plans to officially launch it in the coming weeks, the company told CNBC .
Another popular brokerage firm, Angel One, which has 6.7 million active retail customers, is also reportedly planning to launch US stock trading on its platform.
Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Singapore, the Chief Executive Officer and Director, told CNBC that Indians have "great interest" in investing in U.S. stocks, especially in technology companies. He added that "retail investors like anything that goes up in value," and mentioned the craze for cryptocurrencies among Indian investors a few years ago.
U.S. stock demand is heating up
Zerodha, the Vice President of Corporate Development, told CNBC: "There has always been a potential demand in India for investing in global companies."
He said that the poor performance of the Indian stock market in the past few years, as well as the lack of leading artificial intelligence companies locally, is driving the demand for American products. Mukherjee also mentioned that the depreciation of the Indian rupee against the US dollar has prompted investors to “put a portion of their portfolios in another currency.”
Since the beginning of this year, India's benchmark stock index Nifty has fallen by nearly 13%, while the S&P 500 index has risen by more than 12%. Data from India's depository institution NSDL shows that since January, foreign investors have been withdrawing from the Indian market, with direct stock capital outflows reaching a record $32.5 billion, putting pressure on the stock market.
Experts say that due to the lack of large artificial intelligence companies and relatively high valuations, investors have turned to markets such as South Korea and Taiwan instead of India.
Data from the Reserve Bank of India shows that in August, Indian residents remitted over $321 million overseas for stock and bond investments, an increase of 111% compared to a year ago. For the fiscal year ending March 2026, the total amount of funds remitted for overseas stock and bond investments amounted to $2.6 billion.
Tanvi Kanchan indicates that although the outflow of retail funds is just a small portion of India's foreign exchange reserves, the problem is that these funds happen to increase when the rupee weakens and the US market strengthens, thereby "amplifying the pressure at the worst moments." She is the Anand Rathi Shares & Stock Brokers Vice President and Head of International Business and Strategy.
Kanchan says that investment currently accounts for about 11.7% of total overseas remittances, up from 5.8% a year ago, which indicates that Indians are shifting from overseas consumption to overseas investment.
She stated that the withdrawal of foreign investors and the war in Iran, which led to rising energy costs, have already impacted India's currency, forcing the central bank to intervene. Jain warned that as the number of participants increases, Indian regulators may "reconsider" allowing retail investors to enter the US market.
