Infosys ADRs tumble 5%, Wipro slips over 3% as Wall Street rattled by inflation data and AI fears

Infosys’ American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) fell 5% on the NYSE to hit a low of $13.99 on Friday as AI-induced fears about the likely impact on companies weighed on the Wall Street. To make matters worse, wholesale inflation in January rose sharply to 2.9%, much higher than the estimates of 1.6%, rubbing markets the wrong way, according to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile Wipro ADRs slipped 3.5% to the day's low of 2.17.

Infosys shares today ended 0.8% up on the NSE while Wipro closed with minor cuts.


The US frontline indices reflected a pessimistic trade with a sharp fall across the board. The Dow Jones slumped over 800 points or 1.7% to hit the day's bottom of 48,678.78 as of 10:31 a.m. EST (9:02 pm India Time). The Nasdaq Composite tanked 340 points or 1.4% to hit the Friday low of 22,538.30 around this time. S&P 500 Index was down over 1%.

Widely tracked tech stocks like Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe, Qualcomm, Apple, Cognizant and Nvidia were down up to 3% around this time.

The inflation numbers rang alarm bells raising fears that the Federal Reserve could hold interest rates longer than expected.

Block, the parent company of Cash App, Square and other ventures, offered a glimpse of AI’s potential impact after CEO Jack Dorsey announced plans to nearly halve its workforce. The move comes despite rising profits and increased capital returns to shareholders through stock buybacks.

“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a letter to shareholders while announcing Block’s latest profit results. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”

The co-founder of Twitter also said, “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”

Block is cutting more than 4,000 jobs from its workforce of over 10,000. Its stock jumped nearly 20%.

The European markets also displayed a somber mood with key indices like Spain's IBEX 35 and Germany's Dax falling up to 1%. The French CAC 40 was down 0.45% while the Stoxx 600 traded flat. The UK's FTSE 100 index was the only outlier trading 0.5% up.

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