‘Insurance stocks’ are up in the green today, in a celebratory mood. After seven log years, the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill finally has become a reality with the Rajya Sabha giving it a nod. Introduced in 2008 for the first time in Rajya Sabha, the Bill now allows foreign equity participation. And it is thus expected that we could very soon hear holdings of foreign promoters in JVs going up in the coming days, especially in Prudential, Bupa, Nippon Life and Metlife. It is estimated that this opening up will bring in around $3-3.5 billion in FDI in the coming months.

Bajaj Finserv is up over 2% at Rs.1510, Max India is up just about 1% and so in Exide Inds and Reliance Capital is up over 1.2%. This news was more or less fully discounted by the markets and in the coming days, we could see stock specific news as equity stake hikes get announced.