The Indian benchmark indices continued their losing streak for the fifth straight session on Tuesday, with the BSE Sensex falling more than 400 points in afternoon deals following weak cues from global peers and a surge in oil prices amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Bucking the trend, shares of information technology (IT) companies were trading mostly higher as investors bet high on the growth-driven IT stocks amid a sharp decline in Indian rupee against the U.S. dollar. The falling rupee augurs well for software exporters as it boosts their profit margins.
“IT, energy, metals, and pharma continue to be the safe bets in the present context. But for long-term investors, better returns are likely to come from fundamentally strong beaten down segments like high quality financials," says V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Among sectors, the BSE IT index was the best performer with a 2.2% gain, led by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Birlasoft, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, Mindtree, Intellect Design Arena and Nucleus Software Exports, which rose up to 5%.
Shares of TCS, the country’s largest software exporter, rose as much as 2.98% to hit an intraday high of ₹3,589.05 on the BSE. The other IT heavyweights Infosys rose 2.83% to a day’s high of ₹1,788.8, Tech Mahindra (2.93%), HCL Technologies (2.13%), Wipro (1.6%), and L&T Infotech (2.7%).
Among midsized IT stocks, 3i Infotech gained 5%, followed by Birlasoft, Intellect Design Arena, Nucleus Software Exports and Mindtree, which rose in the range of 2-5% on the BSE.
The Indian rupee plunged to all-time low record low against the U.S. dollar in the previous session as escalated Russia-Ukraine conflict sapped investors’ risk appetite and prompted them to shift focus to safer assets, such as gold and the U.S. dollar. Adding to it, a record rise in oil prices, with Brent crude hitting a 14-year high of $130 a barrel also raised fear about inflationary pressure, remain a major headwind for the rupee-dollar exchange rate.
On Tuesday, the rupee was trading at 76.73 against the dollar after hitting a record low close of 76.93 on Monday as reports of sanctions on Russian oil exports by the U.S. and its European allies triggered a sell-off in the equity market.
“The rupee depreciated by 1.80% in the previous week amid a firm dollar and pessimistic sentiments in the domestic markets. Further, a surge in crude oil prices weighed on the rupee. The dollar index surged 2.10% last week on the back of better-than-expected macroeconomic data from the U.S. Further, hawkish comments from the U.S. Fed chair Jerome Powell lifted the dollar. However, a sharp decline in U.S. treasury yields capped further gains in the dollar,” ICICI Securities said in a report.
Given the continued uptrend in crude prices, the market experts fear that the rupee could slip below 80 a dollar unless the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war ends.
