Shares of Indian IT firms fell sharply on Monday with the Nifty IT index losing about ₹83,000 crore in market capitalisation after the latest H-1B visa policy changes by U.S. President Donald Trump rattled sentiment. The sell-off in the IT pack also dragged down the broader market with the benchmark Sensex falling 466.26 points or 0.56% to settle at 82,159.97, and the Nifty slipping 124.70 points or 0.49% to 25,202.35.
Shares of small-cap and midcap IT stocks such as Infobeans Technologies and Hexaware Technologies tumbled 7-8%, while Mphasis, LTIMindtree, Coforge and Persistent closed 4-5% lower. Heavyweights such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech fell 2-3% on Monday.
The sell-off in the IT pack came after Trump signed an executive order hiking the H-1B visa fee from $1,000 to $100,000 per applicant, a hundredfold increase, for fresh applications. This move is likely to impact the earnings of firms that derive a large chunk of their revenue from the US market.
“This (H-1B fees hike) rattled sentiment in a sector that had only recently shown signs of recovery. IT services are seeing slower growth for now as companies spend more on AI hardware, but demand is expected to pick up once technology stabilises and adoption becomes wider,” said Siddhartha Khemka – Head of Research, Wealth Management, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
Looking ahead, Khemka added that focus will be on Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the U.S. on September 22 for trade deal negotiations—the first since the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs.