HCL Technologies was the top loser, followed by Infosys, which fell 3.5% intraday to hit the day’s low of Rs 1,583.10 on the NSE.
Wipro and Persistent Systems also fell by over 1%, dragging the index down to the intraday low of 37,365.90, a 2.4% intraday decline from Friday’s close.
Others like Tech Mahindra, TCS, Oracle Financial Services Software (OFSS) and Coforge were down by up to 0.8%.
The only gainers in the 10-stock index were LTIMindtree and Mphasis, which were up 0.8% and 0.4%, respectively.
The sentiments soured as US President Donald Trump’s fresh threats on imposing additional tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian crude oil was a non-starter, market observers said.
Trump on Monday issued a fresh tariff warning to India, saying Washington could raise duties on New Delhi if it does not “help on Russian oil issue,” directly linking the threat to the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, ToI reported.Meanwhile, adverse views from a couple of foreign brokerages ahead of the earnings season may also have a sentimental impact on the stocks.
Citing Citi Research, Reuters said that recovery in the sector will likely be slow and uneven, while valuations will remain unattractive.
Meanwhile, CLSA has also come out with a note on IT sector, recommending investors to reduce their positions in IT stocks, CNBC-TV18 reported. It said that the brokerage expects Q3 to be a soft quarter for the tech pack.
Sectorally, IT stocks have been among the best performers for the past three months and only behind Nifty PSU Bank (15%) and Nifty Metal (11%).
The top performer is a mid-tier stock Persistent Systems with 22% returns and is followed by LTIM (18%). HCL, Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS have also delivered double-digit returns in this period.
Wipro has yielded 9% while Mphasis and Coforge among major laggards with nearly 2%, returns. OFSS has declined 14% and is the worst performer.
(Disclaimer: The recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times.)