{"id":324935,"date":"2026-03-06T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/324935\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:02:08","slug":"foreign-outflows-from-indian-it-stocks-at-7-month-high-in-february-on-ai-shockwaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/324935\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign outflows from Indian IT stocks at 7-month high in February on AI shockwaves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">By Bharath Rajeswaran<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">March 6 (Reuters) &#8211; Foreign outflows from India&#8217;s information technology stocks hit a seven-month high in February, on worries that artificial intelligence-led disruption could \u200csqueeze earnings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Foreign portfolio investors sold IT stocks worth 169.49 billion rupees ($1.85 billion) for \u200cthe month. That triggered a 19.5% drop in the IT index, its worst monthly performance since September 2008, \u200bwhen the global financial crisis upended equity markets, National Securities Depository (NSDL) data showed on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The 10 constituents of the index lost about $62.8 billion in market capitalisation in February after U.S. firms such as Anthropic and Palantir unveiled key updates in AI automation. Last year, FPIs \u200coffloaded a record 750 billion \u2060rupees ($8.18 billion) of IT stocks on weaker earnings and softer client spending.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;The IT sector is facing multiple headwinds, particularly from the rapid advancement \u2060of <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:AI tools;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI tools<\/a>,&#8221; said Piyush Gupta, fund manager at AlphaGrep Investment Management.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Constructive collaborations between Indian IT firms and global AI leaders, such as the strategic partnership between Infosys and Anthropic, and \u200bimprovement in \u200bearnings in the sector will be crucial to \u200brestore FPI interest in the sector, \u200caccording to three analysts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Yet, February was not a one-way risk-off story. FPIs rotated aggressively into other pockets of the market, lifting overall inflows to 226.15 billion rupees, the highest in 17 months since September 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The rebound in broader foreign appetite was fueled by improving corporate earnings and easing trade tensions after India sealed a key trade deal with \u200cthe European Union and an interim framework for an \u200bagreement with the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Sectors such as capital goods, \u200bfinancials, metals, and energy drew strong \u200bforeign buying, supported by improving earnings despite a one-time hit from new \u200clabour codes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">AlphaGrep&#8217;s Gupta said that while \u200bsturdier earnings and trade \u200bprogress help the long game, the FPI comeback is likely to be gradual, highly sensitive to geopolitics and external shocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">That fragility is already showing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">FPIs net sold 175.70 \u200bbillion rupees of shares in \u200cjust four sessions in March as the escalating U.S.-Israeli war with Iran \u200bspiked oil prices and squeezed global risk appetite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">($1 = 91.6750 indian rupees)<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">(Reporting by Bharath \u200bRajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Bharath Rajeswaran March 6 (Reuters) &#8211; Foreign outflows from India&#8217;s information technology stocks hit a seven-month high&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,160939,85,46,160938,160940,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-324935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-corporate-earnings","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-national-securities-depository","15":"tag-piyush-gupta","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}