India Emerges as Reverse AI Trade Amidst Relative-Return Disaster, According to Jefferies' Chris Wood

India has emerged as the "reverse AI trade" in emerging markets, underperforming the MSCI Emerging Markets Index by 27 percentage points year-to-date. Strategist Chris Wood of Jefferies notes that India's positioning makes it a contrarian play against the AI boom driving valuations in Taiwan, Korea, and China. Despite near-record foreign institutional investor outflows, India has been a relative-return disaster rather than an absolute-return disaster, thanks to strong domestic investor demand.