The Nifty is expected to rise towards 18,500 in May, following April’s gains of over 3% driven by sustained foreign investor inflows and strong earnings from banking majors in the latter half of the month. While Indian equity markets continue to lag other global peers, data shows that investing in May has produced double-digit return averages 83% of the time. Analysts expect foreign portfolio investors to continue as net buyers, despite net selling YTD of INR 14,158 crore ($1.9bn). However, the biggest risk to current uptrends is further earnings downgrades.