By Bharath Rajeswaran
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian shares sank more than 1% on Monday after Infosys tumbled 15% and sparked a selloff in IT stocks following the country’s No. 2 IT services exporter’s weak results and forecast.
The Nifty 50 was down 1.04% at 17,644.70 as of 10:31 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex lost 1.20% to 59,716.18. The slide comes after the two indexes logged a winning steak for the past nine sessions in a row.
Infosys was down 11.5% and the top drag on the Nifty 50 after it forecast revenue growth hitting a six-year low in fiscal 2024 as U.S. and European clients deferring spending.
Eight of the 13 major sectoral indexes declined. The IT index sank 6.5% and was on track for its biggest one-day loss since March 2020. All the 10 constituents were down between 2.4% and 15%.
HCLTech, the only IT company due to report results this week, fell 4.8%. Tech Mahindra slid 6.6%, also weighed down by a Citigroup rating cut to “sell” on near-term risks and challenges.
The market’s decline is expected, after the strength over the last 10 sessions and due to weak cues from global markets, said two analysts.
They expect the Nifty to find support in the 17,200-17,600 range and resistance at 18,200.
Global equities were subdued after data showing resilient U.S. retail sales bumped up the odds of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by 25 basis points in May. [MKTS/GLOB]
However, the steep drop in domestic stocks was mostly restricted to large-cap companies. The Nifty midcap 100 index and Nifty smallcap 100 were both off about 0.2%.
Among other stocks, Tata Motors rose at the open after saying it would hike prices of passenger vehicle, while HDFC Bank hit a new 52-week high after India’s largest private lender posted a jump quarterly profit.
Both stocks gave up gains to trade down 0.4% and 1.9%, respectively.
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Savio D’Souza)
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Source: The Print
