IT shares gain on weak rupee; Infosys nears 52-week high

Shares of information technology (IT) companies were trading higher as rupee extended weakness against the dollar. The frontline IT stocks such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra were up in the range of 1% to 2% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Persistent Systems, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, Intellect Design Arena, Zensar Technologies, Firstsource Solutions, Hexaware Technologies, SQS India BFSI, Sasken Technologies, Sonata Software and NIIT Technologies were up between 1% and 4% on the BSE.

At 11:01 am; Nifty IT index, the largest gainer among sectoral indices, was up 1.5% as compared to 0.37% rise in the Nifty 50 index.

On Wednesday, the rupee dropped 0.6% to a 17-month low of 68.42 against the dollar. The rupee is inching towards its record low of 68.85, touched on August 28, 2013. The rupee is down 8% from its 2018 high of 63.37, making it the worst-performing currency in the region.

Currency consultants have started to give a call that rupee could touch 70 to a dollar in the coming months. Abishek Goenka, managing director of IFA Global, said the rupee could extend fall till the 73-mark before March 2019, if the 10-year US Treasury yield crosses 3.5%, the Business Standard report suggested