Indian equity markets snapped a five-session winning streak on Friday morning, with the Sensex plunging 831 points to an intraday low of 76,578.08 and the Nifty tumbling 229 points to a morning low of 23,938.75. The selloff was almost entirely driven by a shock revenue-guidance cut by Accenture.
The American IT consulting giant saw its shares crash more than 17 per cent on Wall Street on Thursday after the company warned that the US-Iran war had hit its Middle East business by $400 million and lowered its annual revenue growth forecast to 3–4 per cent from the earlier 3–5 per cent.
The carnage spread instantly to Indian IT stocks, which investors have long treated as a proxy for global technology spending. The BSE IT index dropped 5.38–5.7 per cent to a three-year low, with all 10 of its constituents declining. Infosys, one of the most exposed names, punged more than 8 per cent to hit a morning low of ₹1,030 per share while TCS slid by 6 per cent to a low of ₹2,059.90 per share. HCL Tech declined nearly 5 per cent and Tech Mahindra shed 5 per cent.
Morgan Stanley warned that Accenture's commentary could dampen hopes of a meaningful IT services recovery in the September quarter, raising the risk that Indian IT companies themselves may slash their own revenue growth guidance in the coming weeks.
The rout was compounded by further selling from Foreign Institutional Investors, who had already offloaded equities worth ₹1,025.20 crore on Thursday.
HDFC Bank fell 2 per cent after the Reserve Bank of India approved a three-month extension for interim chairman Keki Mistry rather than announcing a permanent appointment. Twelve of the 16 major sectors logged losses, with small-caps shedding 0.1 per cent and mid-caps falling 0.3 per cent.
However, Reliance Industries edged up 0.5 per cent ahead of its annual general meeting, where investors are keenly awaiting updates on Reliance Jio's IPO plans, AI strategy, and data centre ambitions.
Aurobindo Pharma gained 2 per cent after announcing a planned divestiture of four generic pharma products to meet regulatory requirements for its proposed $250 million acquisition of US firm Lannett Company, and Amber Enterprises rose 2 per cent after signing a manufacturing agreement with Oppo India for smartphones under the Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme brands.
For the week, however, both the Nifty and Sensex remained about 1.5 per cent higher, with the gains from the five-day rally driven by falling crude oil prices following the US-Iran peace deal holding strong.
