IT bleeds on Cognizant's cloudy FY13 outlook; Sensex in red

Moneycontrol Bureau

All-round selling led by IT and TECk stocks pushed Equity benchmarks deep into the red. At At 11.18 am, the 30-share BSE index Sensex was trading down 183.38 points (0.95 percent) at 19,208.48 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was down 56.45 points (0.96 percent) at 5,844.05. Broader makets too have turned red even as cues from Asian markets remain firm.

The Indian tech sector, which took a beating even yesterday, reacted to Cognizant's fears of a slow down in revenue growth in FY13. In its SEC filing, the Nasdaq-listed Cognizant said its senior executives will get 100 percent of their performance-linked stock units only if the company meets a sales target of $8.52 billion. This means the IT services company's 16 percent growth expectation will be met only after it meets its full-year revenue guidance of $7.34 billion for 2012.

Following the news which indicates 2013 may be another year of hardship, Indian IT stocks nosedived. Infosys remains top loser in the sector with 2.62% cut, followed by HCL Tech, TCS and Wipro.