IT shares in focus; KPIT, L&T Technology, Mindtree hit record highs

Shares of information technology (IT) companies were in focus at the bourses on Wednesday, with KPIT Technologies, L&T Technology Services (LTTS) and Mindtree hitting their respective record highs on the BSE in intra-day trade.

Among indviudal stocks, Coforge surged nearly 7 per cent to Rs 2,750, while Larsen & Toubro Infotech gained 4 per cent to Rs 4,070 in intra-day trade on the BSE. Zensar Technologies, LTTS, Wipro, Mindtree and Mphasis were up in the range of 2 per cent to 3 per cent, while, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra were up between 1 per cent and 2 per cent.

At 09:42 am, the S&P BSE IT index, the top gainer among sectoral indices, was up 1.3 per cent, as compared to 0.54 per cent risen in the S&P BSE Sensex. The IT index hit an intra-day high of 26,241 points, is 3.2 per cent away from its all-time high of 27,074 touched on January 14, 2021. In past three trading days, BSE IT index outperformed the market and was up 3.3 per cent, against 1.9 per cent gain in the benchmark index.

The $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill stimulus, if passed, will boost the US economy and will, in turn, positively impact the IT industry (which generates majority of its revenues from this geography), ICICI Securities said in a note.

Meanwhile, the Indian IT services industry reported one of its strongest third quarters in FY21, delivering USD revenue growth of 4.9 per cent quarter on quarer, helped by increased technology spends across all key industries (despite adverse seasonality), pick up in deal sizes, and faster conversion from pipeline to orders.

Analysts at Motilal Oswal Securities continue to see Cloud migration, Digital transformation, and user experience as multi-year opportunities for Indian IT companies. These will be complimented by cost takeout deals as clients normalize their budgets to increase spending on Digital transformation.

Led by robust order book and decent deal conversion, we expect mid-teens growth for the sector in FY22E. We expect margins to be rangebound as some cost pertaining to travel, normalization of utilizations, and wage hikes will now gradually return. However, this impact should be mostly offset by operating leverage due to higher growth and ongoing pyramid rationalization, the brokerage firm said technology sector report.