Over the past couple of years, the Reserve Bank of India’s norms and the government’s Foreign Exchange Management Act have made it easier for you, as an individual, to invest in overseas securities and assets. About a year back, the cumulative maximum amount one could invest overseas was raised to $200,000, or Rs 93.60 lakh at the present dollar-rupee rate of Rs 46.80.

But you may not have utilised even a bit of this limit. For, every domestic broker worth his salt would tell you that the Indian equity market is poi-sed to give superlative returns once the real economy picks up from last year’s slump. Should you, therefore, think global for equity investment?

There is a constant interplay of recovery and lapses in economies of developed countries in North America and Europe, and it has an indirect sobering effect on the Indian stock market. And available options present you with the opportunity to diversify into relatively lesser-known markets and potentially upcoming sectors.

Over the next few years, there will be some definite investment opportunities in global markets that you, as an individual investor, should not ignore. It will be useful to keep 10 per cent to 25 per cent of investible surplus aside to tap such opportunities. Across the globe, there are people who are looking at having a reasonable chunk of investments outside home countries.

Take the case of Mamtha Banerjee, a US-citizen of Indian origin, who returned to India about a year ago to run the operations of Investment Yogi, an internet-based financial planning firm. Banerjee uses three US-based investment platforms, — Schwab, Ameritrade and Fidelity — to invest in global securities, particularly through global mutual funds. “My exposure to international securities is 40 to 50 per cent and the reason is to hedge my bets across markets,” she says.

There are three ways one can take exposure to global markets – domestic brokerages, domestic mutual funds and domestic stock exchanges.

Brokerage firms: A handful of domestic brokerages such as ICICI Secu-rities, Kotak Securities, Anagram Securities, Reliance Money and India Infoline offer retail investors access to overseas trading interface through tie-ups with international broking firms or trading platforms. Through such trading interfaces, investors can trade shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on stock exchanges across the globe. In some cases, investors can also dabble in futures and options of equities and indices of international derivative exchanges.

ICICI Securities’ overseas trading platform is through Pnson, a US-based broking firm with access to NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq. You log on to www.icicidirect.com and jump to a trading interface where you can sift through available stocks and ETFs on the NYSE, Nasdaq and enter your orders. Pnson’s system picks up these orders and routes them to the excha-nges through its system .

Kotak Securities acts as introducing broker to Saxo Capital Markets, which has a direct membership on the Singapore Exchange and formal arrangements with trading and clearing members of over 20 exchanges around the world. Orders are accepted on an internet-based interface.

Kazuki of Saxo Capital Markets said when an investor punches in an order on the site, it comes to Saxo’s central trading interface from where it gets distributed to the clearing member of an exchange on which that order is placed for. Anagram has a similar tie-up with international trading interface of Direct Financial Network.

Except for ICICI Securities and Anagram, others allow you to kick off overseas trading only if you bring in a minimum trading amount deposit of $10,000 (Rs 4.8 lakh). The brokerage rate on trades varies from exchange to exchange. It can be a fixed $1 to $5 per trade or a 0.5 to 1 per cent of the value of the trade. There is a range of stocks and ETFs available. ETFs are the most attractive instruments as they offer quick and diversified exposure. They are listed and traded on stock exchanges just like stocks.

In equities, one can buy an ETF that tracks an index investing in global stocks, regional stocks or stocks in a particular country. There are also sectoral ETFs invest in specific industries and ETFs that invest in physical commodities such as gold, silver and platinum or indices that track changes in non-physical elements like weather.

Domestic mutual funds: A few domestic mutual funds have schemes that have been set up with the specific objective of investing in equities overseas. Some of them are more specific in the choice of geographies, such as ABN Amro MF’s China Fund.

Buying and redeeming is easier in such products than trading on international platforms as one doesn’t have to convert rupees into foreign currencies. But one is dependant on the fu-nd manager to invest in securities that serves the purpose of diversification.

Domestic stock exchanges: The National Stock Exchange (NSE) recently tied up with Chicago Merca­ntile Exchange to cross-list each other’s index products on respective equity derivatives platforms. NSE has already applied to the Securities and Exchange Board of India for approval to launch rupee-settled futures and options contract on the US S&P 500 index. This will allow investors to trade S&P 500 futures or options through the existing NSE broker just trading Nifty futures or options. This will set the stage for a range of rupee-settled contracts on international indices and products.

The Indian stock exchanges platform is also available to mutual funds wanting to launch ETFs on international indices. ETF-specialist Bench-mark Mutual Fund already has a Hang Seng ETF listed on NSE.

Available options call for investors to get serious about factoring in the whole globe in investment decisions. The choices available may be limited, but they can only get better.