Friday, November 14, 2008

IT Shares Fall On Deep Cut In Guidance By Intel Corp - Nov 14, 2008

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 53.17 points, or 0.56%, to 9,478.17.IT majors, Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services fell by between 0.17% to 3.35%. But India's third largest IT exporter by sales Satyam Computer Services rose 0.21%.The BSE IT index hit a high of 2,703.79 and a low of 2,563.87 so far during the day. The index had a 52-week high of 4,746.59 on 2 June 2008 and a 52-week low of 2,335.89 on 27 October 2008.

IT shares were under pressure recently on worries that the newly US president-elect Barack Obama may curtail the outsourcing business of the country and the direct impact will be on India's IT sector. Obama has strong reservations on outsourcing and in his pre-election campaigns he had promised ending tax breaks for companies that ship US jobs overseas.

The BSE IT index had outperformed the market over the past one month till 12 November 2008, rising 1.88% as compared to the Sensex's 9.42% decline. It had also outperformed the market in the past one quarter, falling 30.2% as compared to the Sensex's fall of 37.31%.

The cut in guidance by Intel, the world's biggest maker of PC microprocessors with 80% of the global market, offers further evidence that technology companies are in for a beating because of the economy. The Santa Clara-based Intel Corp slashed more than $1 billion from its sales forecast and dialed its profit expectations way back. Intel blamed a clampdown on spending for reducing demand for its chips. Intel's announcement came after trading hours in India on Wednesday, 12 November 2008.

India's software and services exports stood at nearly $40 billion during financial year ended March 2008, with the US as its largest market.

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