HCL Technologies and Infosys INDIAN IT STOCKS RISE

Shares of major Indian information technology companies gained during early trading on Friday, even as global artificial intelligence stocks came under heavy selling pressure. Nifty 50 constituents HCL Technologies, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services advanced 1–2%, while Wipro, Persistent Systems and Coforge rose around 1% each in the Nifty 200 index. Indian IT emerged as the only gaining sector in the domestic equity market. The sectoral index has climbed 17% so far this month, reflecting growing investor interest amid volatility in global technology stocks. Concerns over rising AI-related expenditure and questions about the sustainability of massive investments in the technology have weighed on global AI stocks over the past two weeks. On Friday, South Korea’s KOSPI and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell around 1% each, following losses in major AI-linked stocks, including Samsung Electronics and Tokyo Electron. The weakness followed an overnight sell-off on Wall Street, where major technology stocks such as Nvidia and Alphabet declined, dragging the Nasdaq Composite nearly 3% lower. Technology companies that had driven a four-year rally in US equities faced significant selling pressure on Thursday, as earnings from major companies heightened concerns that the market’s recovery since late March had been too rapid. Meta Platforms shares plunged nearly 8% overnight after the Facebook parent reported its first cash outflow in more than a decade, driven by spending related to artificial intelligence. Despite the global weakness, some analysts view Indian IT stocks as a relative hedge against the broader AI investment trade. Indian IT services companies could benefit from rising demand for AI consulting, implementation, integration and managed services, without having to commit the same scale of upfront capital expenditure on data centres and semiconductors as major global technology firms.