Indian investment platforms are opening access to US stocks for millions of retail investors seeking alternatives to a domestic market that has underperformed global peers, accelerating a shift of household investment money towards overseas technology companies and dollar-denominated assets.
Groww, India’s largest investment platform by active investors, introduced US equity trading earlier this month, offering access to more than 10,000 American stocks and exchange-traded funds, alongside fractional share ownership. Harsh Jain, the company’s chief operating officer and co-founder, told CNBC that Nvidia, SpaceX, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Micron and Meta were among the most popular choices among early users.
Groww accounts for more than 29% of India’s 46 million active brokerage investors, giving its expansion into overseas markets the potential to widen access to global equities well beyond the wealthy clients who previously relied on international banks and wealth management firms.
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Zerodha, the country’s second-largest trading platform, with a 15% share of active clients according to National Stock Exchange data, is also beta-testing US stock trading and plans to launch the service within weeks, the company told CNBC. Angel One, another major brokerage with 6.7 million active retail clients, is also reportedly planning to introduce the feature.
The expansion marks a change in how Indian households can participate in global markets. Instead of relying primarily on domestic shares or specialist wealth managers, retail investors are gaining more direct access to some of the world’s largest technology companies, including businesses at the center of the artificial intelligence boom.
However, the shift also presents a challenge for India’s financial authorities. While overseas investment can help households diversify their portfolios, growing demand for dollar-denominated assets could add to pressure on the rupee at a time when foreign investors are withdrawing capital and higher energy costs linked to the Iran war are weighing on the currency.
Interest in overseas equities has grown as India’s stock market has struggled to match gains in the United States. The Nifty 50 benchmark has fallen nearly 13% since the beginning of the year, while the S&P 500 has gained more than 12%, according to the figures cited in the report.
The performance gap has strengthened the appeal of US equities, particularly technology companies benefiting from the expansion of artificial intelligence. India’s relatively limited presence among major global AI companies has also encouraged some investors to look abroad for exposure to the sector.
“There has always been latent demand in India for investing in global companies,” Somnath Mukherjee, vice president of corporate development at Zerodha, told CNBC.
Mukherjee said the domestic market’s underperformance, the absence of major local AI champions and the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar were contributing to demand for US investments. Holding foreign assets, he said, also allows investors to maintain part of their portfolios in another currency.
Nitin Jain, chief executive and director at Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Singapore, similarly told CNBC that interest in US stocks, particularly technology companies, was strong.
But he cautioned that retail investors can be drawn towards assets that have recently performed well. “Retail investors like whatever goes up,” Jain said, pointing to the enthusiasm for cryptocurrency among Indian investors several years ago.
That behavior creates a risk that some investors may be responding to recent performance rather than assessing valuations, currency exposure and the possibility of losses. US technology stocks can offer access to global growth industries, but their prices can also be sensitive to interest rates, earnings expectations and questions about whether AI investments will generate adequate returns.
The broader shift is also occurring against a difficult backdrop for Indian equities. Foreign investors have withdrawn a record $32.5 billion from direct equity investments in India since January, according to data from the National Securities Depository Ltd. The outflows have added pressure to the market as investors have favored alternatives, including South Korea and Taiwan, amid concerns about India’s relatively expensive valuations and limited exposure to major AI businesses.
Access to US equities offers Indian retail investors a way to diversify away from a market increasingly challenged by those concerns. For domestic markets, however, the growing availability of overseas investments could make it easier for household savings to follow global returns rather than remain concentrated in local assets.
Rising Overseas Investment and Rupee weakness
The growth in retail access comes as official data point to an increase in Indian residents’ overseas investment activity.
In August, residents sent more than $321 million abroad for investment in equity and debt, an increase of 111% from a year earlier, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India. During the financial year ended March 2026, outward remittances for equity and debt investments totaled $2.6 billion.
Investment accounted for about 11.7% of total outward remittances, up from 5.8% a year earlier, according to Tanvi Kanchan, associate director and head of international business and strategy at Anand Rathi Shares & Stock Brokers.
The change suggests that overseas remittances are increasingly being used not only to fund consumption, education or other spending abroad, but also to acquire financial assets.
Although retail investment outflows remain small relative to India’s foreign exchange reserves, their timing matters. When investors shift money overseas as the rupee weakens and US markets outperform, additional demand for dollars can complicate efforts to stabilize the currency.
Kanchan warned that the trend could “amplify pressure at the worst moment,” particularly when other sources of capital are already moving out of India.
Foreign investor withdrawals and rising energy bills associated with the Iran war have contributed to pressure on the rupee, prompting the central bank to intervene. Higher energy costs can also worsen India’s external balances by increasing the amount the country must spend on imported fuel.
Retail investors moving money abroad are not the primary driver of those pressures, and the reported investment flows remain relatively modest compared with the wider economy. But a sustained increase could add another source of dollar demand as the country manages external financing and currency risks.
Wider Access Could Invite Closer Regulatory Scrutiny
The expansion of US stock trading raises a further question about how far Indian regulators will allow retail participation in overseas markets to grow.
Nitin Jain warned that regulators could have “second thoughts” about permitting wider retail access to US equities as participation increases.
The concern is not simply that investors may lose money. A larger and more persistent shift towards overseas assets could complicate efforts to manage capital flows and the currency, particularly during periods of domestic market weakness. At the same time, restricting access could limit investors’ ability to diversify internationally and participate in industries that are underrepresented in India’s own stock market.
The opportunity is substantial, especially for brokerages, because providing access to international stocks allows them to serve customers seeking exposure beyond domestic shares.
Now, India faces a challenge to balance the benefits of financial integration with the risks of capital outflows during periods of currency stress. The growing popularity of US equities shows that retail investors are becoming more willing to look beyond domestic markets, but it also exposes a deeper issue: when local investment opportunities appear less competitive, financial platforms can make the movement of household capital abroad faster and easier.