Top five information technology (IT) stocks namely Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Infosys Ltd, HCL Technologies Ltd, Wipro Ltd and Tech Mahindra Ltd fell up to 5 per cent in Thursday’s trade, tracking an overnight drop in select American depository receipts (ADRs). The sell-off eroded around Rs 1,00,000 crore in market value from these five technology names.
Infosys shares plunged 5.18 per cent to hit a low of Rs 1,396 apiece. TCS tanked 4.58 per cent to Rs 2,776. HCL Tech dropped 4.55 per cent to Rs 1,480.50. Wipro declined 3.76 per cent to Rs 221.10. TechM also slipped 4.84 per cent to Rs 1,555. These IT firms commanded m-cap of Rs 2,37,1285 crore in intraday trade today against Wednesday’s Rs 2,47,1656 crore, down Rs 1,00,372 crore.
Anthropic shock
Tech stocks, reeling under the Anthropic shock, are unlikely to recover soon, said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments. “The sharp dip in the ADRs of top Indian IT companies in US, indicates that Indian IT will continue to struggle. The switch from IT to other segments will help performing stocks in performing sectors,” said Vijayakumar said.
Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant ADRs had fallen up to 5 per cent overnight.
Analysts noted that US markets is seeing rotation as crowded winners such as high-beta, high volatility stocks are seeing sharply fall. Anthropic’s release of specialized Claude Cowork plugins appears to have accelerated the selloff in software names in the US, they said.
There are fears that AI could collapse entire layers of the software value chain, which led to indiscriminate selling across SaaS, consulting and data analytics stocks.In a recent note, Nirmal Bang noted that Palantir and Anthropic have accelerated the re-pricing by attacking time and workflow economics. It said Palantir’s claim that SAP ECC to S 4 migrations can be completed in weeks rather than years directly compresses duration, labour intensity and client lock-in.
“Anthropic’s Claude co-worker plugins showed how quickly foundation model providers can ship end-to-end workflows across legal, sales and analytics. We note that when execution moves to the model layer, wrapper software and services lose insulation almost instantly,” it said.
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