India’s equity benchmarks likely to open flat as IT sell-off keeps sentiment gloomy

India’s equity benchmarks are likely to open little changed on Monday as sentiment remained gloomy after the previous week’s sell-off in IT stocks, with foreign investors going back to being net sellers after five sessions of buying.

The Gift Nifty futures were trading at 25,429.5 points as of 7:58 a.m. IST, indicating the benchmark Nifty 50 will open around Friday’s close of 25,471.1.

The Nifty and Sensex fell about 1% each last week, dragged by IT stocks on anxiety around AI automation tools and their impact on traditional software businesses.

Foreign investors turned net sellers on Friday, offloading 73.95 billion rupees ($816.90 million) worth of Indian shares, after staying on the buying side for five straight sessions post the India-U.S. trade deal optimism, as per provisional data.

“With ongoing repricing in technology stocks and concerns around AI disruption, a selective and risk-managed approach remains advisable,” said Ajit Mishra, senior vice president of research at Religare Broking.

The Nifty IT index 8.2% during the week, in its biggest weekly drop in ten months.

The US-listed shares of Infosys rose 3.6% on Friday, while those of Wipro fell 2.3%.

The concerns around AI disruption could also dampen Monday’s listing of enterprise data analytics company Fractal Analytics , touted as India’s first pure-play AI listing.