Infosys shares post worst day in six years! Market cap plunges by ₹56,000 crore; here is why

Shares of Infosys, the country's second-largest information technology (IT) services company, posted their worst day in nearly six years on Wednesday, February 4, mirroring losses in other IT stocks after Anthropic's latest AI offering raised concerns about the future of technology companies, analysts noted.

Infosys stock dropped as much as 8.38%, its biggest single-day fall since March 16, 2020, to hit an intraday low of ₹1,517 on the National Stock Exchange. With today's fall in Infosys, its market capitalisation dropped by ₹56,000 crore to ₹6.15 lakh crore at the day’s lowest level, data from stock exchanges showed.

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.

Back home, the measure of IT shares on the National Stock Exchange, the NIFTY IT index, dropped as much as 6.35% to hit an intraday low of 36,160.20.

All 10 shares in the NIFTY IT index were trading lower, led by Persistent Systems' over 6.5% fall. LTI Mindtree, Coforge, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Mphasis and Tata Consultancy Services also dropped between 5% and 8%.

Mid- and small-cap IT shares were also facing selling pressure as the NIFTY MIDSMALL IT & TELECOM index dropped 3.56%. 16 of twenty stocks in the index were trading lower, led by Hexaware Technologies' 5% fall. Sonata Software, Birlasoft, Oracle Financial Services, Zensar Technologies, KPIT Technologies and Cyient also fell between 2.5% and 5%.