IT may prove to be the dark horse in 2017

Firms have levers to cushion impact of stricter US visa norms

The writing on the wall is clear. Given US President Donald Trump’s proposals, the US, the key market for Indian information technology (IT) services companies, will see restrictions that would curtail job losses, real or perceived, caused by software professionals from India. The Bill introduced recently to push up the minimum wages paid to H1-B employees to as much as $130,000 a year against $60,000 now is a step in that direction. Not surprisingly, IT stocks have been under pressure in recent times. The stocks of the top three IT companies, namely, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro are