Sensex, Nifty dip on US H-1B Visa row; IT, Tech stocks bleed

The Stock market of India went under selling pressure after the US made it clear that it is mulling to cap H-1B visa issued each year to Indians at 10-15 per cent of the annual quota. The BSE Sensex shed 137 points and lost the psychological 39,000 levels while the 50-stock Nifty went down 42 points at 11,649 levels. The index bank Nifty lot 130 points to 30,231 levels. Navkar Corporation, Adani Green Energy, Max India, Gujarat Gas and Apollo Hospitals were the top five gaining stocks in the intraday trade while Jet Airways, Jain Irrigation, SREI Infrastructure, JaiprakashAssociates and IRB Infrastructure stocks were the top five losing stocks in the early morning trade session.

Speaking on the market trends Prakash Pandey, Head of Research at Fairwealth Securities said, "This slide in the Indian indices is mainly due to the heavy selloff into the IT and tech stocks that is caused by the H-1B Visa row that has emerged recently between the Indo-US administration. The US government is planning to cap H-1B visa issued each year to Indians at 10-15 per cent of annual quota." He said that due to this the IT and tech stocks are expected to underperform and hence the heavy selloff is expected to continue in next two to three trading sessions.

It stock led the blood bath at Dalal Street as the BSE IT index lost around 1.1 per cent in the early morning trade session. IT major HCL Infosystems share price crashed around 8.5 per cent, shares of  Intense Technologies dipped over 4 per cent, Kellton Tech Solutions scrip lost around 5.5 per cent, MIC Electronics ent down 4.76 per cent, Matrimony.com dipped over 3 per cent, Ramco Systems was down near 3 per cent, Rolta India crashed near 3.9 per cent, Subex scrip went down around 3.5 per cent, Wipro faced the selloff and went down around 3.5 per cent.

Tech stocks followed the IT selloff closely as the BSE Tech index went down around 1 per cent in early morning trade. Tech major Reliance Communications share price crashed 4.72 per cent, Tejas Networks stocks nosedived 5.17 per cent, ITI scrip went down around 0,75 per cent, Vodafone Idea shares went southward around 0.35 per cent.

Among Asian markets, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index scaled 0.55 per cent, South Korean Kospi rose 0.15 per cent, Hang Seng jump near 1 per cent while the Shanghai market shot up 2.58 per cent.