IT shares dip as rupee hits four-month high against dollar

Shares of information technology (IT) companies are under pressure with most of the frontline stocks trading lower by over 2% each after the rupee rallied to 4-month high. The rupee has appreciated almost 3% in past two trading sessions.

The rupee resumed higher at Rs 53.80 a dollar, as against the last weekend's level of Rs 54.30 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) Market and rallied further to Rs 53.66, before quoting at Rs 54.03, at 1440 hours. The rupee was at Rs 55.41 on 13 September 2012.

Every 1% change in rupee-dollar has a 40 basis points impact on the margins on the net profit numbers of IT services companies like TCS, Infosys, HCL to mention a few. One basis point is equal to one percentage points.

 

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), IT index, the second largest loser, is down almost 3% or 169 points as compared to about 1% or 106 points rise in benchmark Sensex.

Among the individual stocks, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has dipped 4% to Rs 1,358, followed by HCL Technologies (down 4%), Infosys (down 3%) and Wipro (down 2%) on the BSE. Hexaware Technologies, eClerx Services, KPIT Cummins and Tech Mahindra among others are down 2-6% each.