Wipro emerged as the top gainer among IT stocks, rising up to 1%. It was followed by gains in LTIMindtree, Persistent Systems, Coforge and HCLTech. Meanwhile, heavyweights Infosys and TCS traded slightly lower, though their declines were far less severe than those seen in the broader market.
The resilience comes after the Indian rupee weakened past 92.3025 against the U.S. dollar on Monday, hitting a fresh record low. A falling rupee is generally positive for Indian IT companies because most of their revenue is earned in foreign currencies, primarily U.S. dollars, while a large portion of their costs is denominated in rupees.
The rebound also follows deeply oversold conditions after IT stocks witnessed a sharp correction last month. The Nifty IT index tumbled around 20% in February, marking its steepest monthly decline since the global financial crisis in 2008.
The selloff came after Anthropic introduced plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent, which can automate tasks across functions such as legal, sales, marketing and data analysis, triggering concerns around the impact of AI-led automation on the IT services space.
What’s happening today?
Indian stock markets tumbled sharply on Monday, with the Sensex and Nifty each plunging around 3%, extending losses from last week. The selloff came as the war between Iran and Israel-US escalated over the weekend, sending crude oil prices soaring and stoking concerns about India’s rupee and macroeconomic stability.
Crude oil surged a staggering 30% in a single day, on track for its largest one-day gain, amid fears of a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz and potential supply disruptions.Persistent foreign institutional investor (FII) selling added to the negative sentiment. Foreign investors were net sellers of Indian equities both in the previous session and throughout last week’s massive selloff. Market data shows that FPIs sold nearly Rs 16,000 crore worth of equities in the first week of March, while net outflows for the first four trading sessions of the month totaled around Rs 21,829 crore.
Asian markets also suffered heavy losses, mirroring the sharp spike in global crude oil prices. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell more than 6%, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped nearly 8% as of 9:02 am IST. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined nearly 3%, while China’s Shanghai Composite was down over 1%.
Wall Street futures signaled further weakness, with S&P 500 futures down 2.1% and Nasdaq futures sliding 2.5%. European markets were expected to open sharply lower, with EUROSTOXX 50 and DAX futures both down 3.2%, and FTSE futures falling 1.7%.
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