Tale of the Tape 

Good evening everyone. After a rough storm, markets took a breather today!

Nifty (+1.7%) and Sensex (+1.5%) recovered half of Monday’s losses, tracking a rally in Asian markets and on hopes of tariff negotiations. Midcaps and Smallcaps soared too; up +2.1% each. A cool 450 stocks in the NSE 500 ended higher. Is this just a relief rally? The Stocktwits Sentiment Meter remains divided:

It was a sea of green across sectors. PSU Banks (+2.6%), Real Estate (+2.5%) and Oil & Gas (2.2%) saw the most buying.

As the IT sector’s earnings season kicks off this week, how badly will Trump upset their FY26? Read our top story to get all the deets.

Titan was up +3% on a solid Q4 biz update. Meanwhile, Delhivery cracked -7% over worries around broader industry weakness. More details below.

Who were the big gainers from today’s rally? Check out our charts below to find out.

OMC stocks were buzzing after oil minister Hardeep Puri said the recent excise duty hike was to compensate them for LPG under recoveries. IOC, BPCL and HPCL were up between +2% and +5%.

InterGlobe Aviation (+3%) hit a new all-time high after Morgan Stanley said it sees a further +18% upside from current levels.

Jio Financial Services gained +6% after foraying into the ‘loans against securities’ biz in its Jio finance app.

Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders FY25 revenue crossed the Rs 10,000 cr mark; they also approved a second interim dividend of Rs 3 p/sh.

IGL was down -4% after the Delhi government's new EV policy recommended phasing out CNG rickshaws.

Contract wins. Bharat Electronics (+4%) was up after bagging a Rs 2,210 cr order from the defence ministry. NBCC gained +5% after announcing work orders worth Rs 121 cr and inking an MoU with Railtel to build data centre infra.

Here are the closing prints:

Stock
IT Sector: Do Or Die Moment!

TCS will kick off the IT sector’s earnings season on Thursday! If it were business as usual, we’d be talking about how the industry is bouncing back and how FY26 is the start of a boom cycle. Sadly, we live in the age of Trump. With a 50%-60% chance of a US recession in 2025, the outlook is gloomy for IT firms. Here’s what you need to know.

For starters, most analysts expect big cuts to discretionary spending. That’s the first thing to go in a crisis. Motilal Oswal says verticals that will be most affected include manufacturing, retail & consumer and hi-tech. That’s because clients in these areas will be hurt by Trump’s tariffs. Financial services may see a moderate hit as US credit growth slows down sharply. So keep an eye out for firms that are overexposed to these segments.

Just how bad will this hurt the topline? During Covid times, the tier-1 pack saw revenue declines upto -3% YoY. We don’t know if it will be that, but assume that FY26 could very well see flat to negative growth.

Now, this doesn't mean there will be no opportunity. Just as the 2008 crisis eventually saw bank tech spending soar and COVID saw cloud services boom, this tariff meltdown could see people finally make a strong shift to Gen AI. This could be the silver lining that we see a year down the road.

For now, you should be keeping an eye on: revenue guidance projections (at least 6 analysts predict that TCS and Infosys will issue “conservative” guidance), deal execution (clients could get nervous and go slow on stuff they already decided to spend on) and order pipelines.

Big Picture: After the big correction --the Nifty IT Index is down a whopping -23% YTD -- valuations may seem great. TCS & Infosys are trading 17%-21% below their 5-year averages. But most experts say wait a little more for the picture to get clear before jumping in.

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