The Indian equity benchmarks ended higher for a third straight session on Wednesday, February 4, powered by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Eternal, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro and Trent.
However, gains were capped owing to selling pressure in IT heavyweights like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra after Anthropic’s latest AI offering raised concerns about the future of technology companies, analysts noted.
The SENSEX ended 79 points higher at 83,818 and NIFTY50 index advanced 48 points to close at 25,776.
IT shares witnessed intense selling pressure on Wednesday. The measure of IT stocks on the National Stock Exchange, NIFTY IT index, dropped nearly 6% as Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) offering sent a wave of sell-offs in technology shares across the world.
Overnight, in the United States, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index dropped 1.43% as investors reacted sharply to new developments around Anthropic’s new AI products, especially tools that threaten the business models of established software, legal, and data companies, reports suggested.
Anthropic released new AI plug-ins/extensions for its Claude Cowork agent, which can automate tasks in legal, sales, marketing, compliance and data analysis – areas traditionally serviced by expensive, licensed software companies.
These tools directly compete with incumbents such as legal research platforms, analytics databases, and professional-services software. That raised fears that AI could displace high-margin, long-term subscription revenue, as per news reports.
Shares of Infosys, the country’s second largest IT company, plunged as much as 8.81%, its biggest single day decline in six years, to hit an intraday low of ₹1,510 wiping out ₹56,000 crore from its market capitalisation.
Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra and Wipro were also among the top losers in the NIFTY50 index.
On the flipside, Trent was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock ended 5.18% higher at ₹4,021 ahead of its earnings announcement.
Eternal, ONGC, NTPC, Adani Ports, Power Grid and Max Healthcare also rose between 1,89%-4.9%.
Among the individual shares, Sheela Foam rose as much as 20% to hit an intraday high of ₹628.30 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after its profit more than doubled in December quarter.
Sheela Foam, post market hours on Tuesday, reported standalone net profit of ₹39 crore in the third quarter current financial year (Q3FY26), marking an increase of 129% from ₹17 crore in the same period last year.
The Noida-based company’s revenue from operations rose 8% to ₹842 crore in October-December period from ₹781 crore in the year-ago period.
On the sectoral front, twelve of 15 sector gauges compiled by the NSE ended higher led by the NIFTY Consumer Durables index’s 2.66% gain. NIFTY Metal, Auto, PSU Bank, Realty and Oil & Gas indices also rose between 0.77%-2%.
On the other hand, IT, pharma and healthcare stocks faced selling pressure.
Broader markets outperformed their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index advanced 0.63% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index climbed 1.27%.
The overall market breadth was positive as 2,153 shares ended higher while 1,048 closed lower on the NSE.