India will outperform the global bear market, retail won't give up: Morgan Stanley's Ridham Desai

Morgan Stanley India’s Ridham Desai is confident that domestic equities will outperform the global bear market, though he said it will be difficult to find the bottom in this selloff.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Desai said he has ‘no idea’ whether Indian equities are currently at the bottom, or not. The benchmark index Sensex has dropped nearly 12,000 points after nearly touching the 86,000 level in September 2024.

"However, I can say the stocks are attractive," Desai said, adding that the small and midcaps have now come out of their valuation excesses after recording a sharp fall of over 20 percent from recent highs. He said financials will lead the current market out of the woods.

Ridham Desai called the Union Budget 2025 as ‘very sweet’ for the stock markets. "Markets have ignored the RBI and government policy pivot. However, India's policy environment today is far more certain than the rest of the world put together, whether it is US, Europe or China," Morgan Stanley India MD said while adding that the domestic growth slowdown was triggered by policy tightening.