IT selloff sours Indian shares; benchmarks set for weekly drop

Indian shares decline on Friday, with benchmarks losing about 1% each, as IT rout deepens on concerns over artificial intelligence-led disruption and fading hopes of near-term U.S. rate cut

All 16 major sectors decline

IT .NIFTYIT drops as much as 5% during the session, before trimming some of the losses; last down 1.5%

Ten Nifty IT constituents have lost over $50 billion in market cap in February as Anthropic and Palantir's AI push raises fears of hit to revenues and labour-intensive business model

Realty .NIFTYREAL falls 2.2% on fears that a slowdown in IT hiring could hurt housing demand in major cities

Metals .NIFTYMET drop 3%, dragged by a 6% decline in Hindalco HALC.NS after reporting a fall in December quarter profit

The sell-off spills over to broader markets with small-caps .NIFSMCP100 and mid-caps .NIFMDCP100 falling 1.4% and 1.2% respectively

Session's decline set to drag Nifty .NSEI, Sensex .BSESN to weekly losses, as benchmarks surrender earlier gains on optimism over U.S. trade deal

Other Asian markets .MIAPJ0000PUS fall 1.1%, tracking an overnight fall in Wall Street equities as a global tech sell-off intensifies MKTS/GLOB