Indian (SENSEX) stock-index futures rose as the benchmark equity gauge headed for its fourth annual advance in five years.

SGX CNX Nifty Index futures for January delivery gained 0.4 percent to 6,359 at 9.57 a.m. in Singapore. Apollo Tyres Ltd. (APTY) may move after Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. said it’s dropping plans to be bought by the Indian company.

The underlying CNX Nifty (NIFTY) Index on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. fell 0.4 percent to 6,291.10 yesterday. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex declined 0.2 percent to 21,143.01. The Bank of New York Mellon India ADR Index of U.S.-traded shares lost 1 percent to 1,158.06.

The Sensex has risen 8.8 percent in 2013, the best performer this year among the four largest emerging markets. It trades at 13.6 times projected 12-month earnings, compared with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index’s 10.5 times.

“We are cautiously positive as confidence is coming back to the market,” Deven Choksey, managing director of Mumbai-based K.R. Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt., said in a phone interview. “In 2014, we expect the beaten-down value stocks to be the first find of the market.”

Global investors bought a net $ 65.1 million of local shares on Dec. 27, taking this year’s inflows to $ 19.9 billion, the most in Asia after Japan, data from the market regulator show. Net purchases last year were $ 24.6 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

India’s top software makers, which get more than 90 percent of their sales from abroad, are among the top four performers on the Sensex in 2013 as an 11 percent decline in the rupee and economic revival in developed nations boost the outlook for Indian exporters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Santanu Chakraborty in Mumbai at schakrabor11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Patterson at mpatterson10@bloomberg.net

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