Sensex tanks 975 points, Nifty 50 down 1.20% as IT sell-off rattles stock market

The unwinding of AI stocks on Wall Street is a positive for Dalal Street, even as the impact of the ‘Anthropic shock’ on Indian IT is yet to be ascertained.

India's IT heavyweights dragged down the stock market today, tracking a 2% drop in Wall Street, on concerns that AI is set to disrupt their business model.

The National Stock Exchange building in Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. (Livemint)

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell as much as 1.16%, or 976.44 points, to 82,698.48 while the broader Nifty 50 slumped 1.19%. All 16 major sectors declined at the open. Here's a look at the movers of the benchmark:

Nifty 50 Top Gainers: Bajaj Finance, Eicher Motors, Apollo Hospitals, State Bank of India, Cipla

Nifty 50 Top Losers: Hindalco, Hindustan Unilever, Eternal, ONGC, Adani Enterprises

The Nifty IT index, which sends five companies—Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra—to the Nifty 50, is on track for the worst week since the pandemic started in March 2020.

To be sure, the unwinding of AI stocks on Wall Street is a positive for Dalal Street for the wider market lacks the outsized exposure to such trade.

“What is rattling the Indian market now is the massive sell-off in IT stocks, which is the second largest profit pool of India Inc.,” V.K. Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments Ltd., told HT Business in an emailed statement. The real impact of the ‘Anthropic shock’ on the IT sector is yet to be ascertained".