Sensex down more than 300 points

New Delhi, Feb 22 (IANS) BSE Sensex is down more than 300 points in morning trade on Thursday.

Sensex was trading at 72,236.94 points, down 386.15 points.

Bharti Airtel, Titan are among the top Sensex laggards down 2 per cent.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities said global brokerage Jefferies said India will be the third largest economy by 2027 thanks to a consistent GDP growth rate, supportive geopolitics, surging market cap, continued reforms, and strong corporate culture. The Union Cabinet approved changes to the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for the space sector, allowing up to 100 per cent foreign investment under the automatic route for certain activities. These include manufacturing of components and systems and sub-systems for satellites.

Asian equities rose Thursday in a sign of fresh momentum in global equities after Nvidia Corp. unveiled a better-than-expected revenue forecast, he said.

Big tech looked poised for a rebound after Nvidia Corp.’s solid results and outlook bolstered confidence in the artificial intelligence frenzy that has powered the stock market resurgence. Nvidia Corp. cleared a high bar with its latest earnings Wednesday, sending its stock surging 9 per cent in the extended session. The company beat top-line expectations by almost $2 billion for the most recent quarter, while doing the same with its outlook for the current one, he said.

US stocks finished mostly higher on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 advancing within the final half-hour of trading. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's January meeting showed most policymakers were concerned about the risks of cutting interest rates too soon, with broad uncertainty about how long borrowing costs should remain at their current level. After the release of the minutes, traders of US short-term interest-rate futures stuck to bets the Fed will begin cutting interest rates no earlier than June, he added.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said the underlying strength of the ongoing market rally is getting widely acknowledged. This explains the FII buying, though marginal, yesterday when the US 10-year bond yield was around 4.3 per cent.

DIIs have been smart to buy continuously when the FIIs have been selling. So, for DIIs there is room to book some profits, which they did yesterday. In the tug of war between FIIs and DIIs in recent years, DIIs have been the clear winners, he said.

An important trend now is the huge delivery based buying in the private banks, which are even now attractively valued in this market with elevated valuations, he said.