HCLTECH Ends as a Major NIFTY Drag as Global Risk-Off Deepens IT Selloff
What changed today
Indian equities closed sharply lower on 24 February 2026, and Information Technology was among the weakest segments in late trade. A global risk-off mood linked to U.S. tariff uncertainty and fresh AI-disruption concerns weighed on IT-heavy positions through the session.
In this setup, HCLTECH finished as one of the biggest drags in NIFTY. The fall was broad across large IT names, but HCLTECH declined more than INFY and TCS, showing stronger selling pressure in HCLTECH than in the rest of the large-cap IT group.
Why this matters now
Two pressures appeared together in one session: broad macro de-risking and concentrated unloading in one large-cap IT stock. This can hide where the strongest risk transfer happened inside the index decline.
The return-volume gap within the same sector was clear. HCLTECH fell 5.83%, compared with 3.58% in INFY and 3.48% in TCS, and HCLTECH volume rose much more against its own average. This indicates the selloff was not uniform across IT.
What The Market Is Missing
- Insight claim: HCLTECH’s move looked like a two-layer selloff, with sector-wide risk-off and stock-specific liquidation together.
- Counter-view: The move can still be seen as a normal high-beta unwind in a weak market, where one large IT stock temporarily drops more than peers.
- Invalidation condition: This reading is invalid if HCLTECH’s relative performance quickly converges with INFY and TCS in the next one to two sessions and volume normalises near average without a fresh IT-specific negative trigger.
Price and technical snapshot
Closing prices are for 24 February 2026, while RSI, MACD, and moving averages are for 23 February 2026.
- HCLTECH: Price 1343.00, down 5.83%. Volume 9869255 versus average 4004708 (about 2.46x). RSI (14) 23.12. MACD line -60.9688, below signal -45.7325. SMA 20 at 1569.23 and SMA 50 at 1625.46, with price below both averages.
- INFY: Price 1280.40, down 3.58%. Volume 26655523 versus average 20619532 (around 1.29x). RSI (14) 20.59. MACD line -73.9856 and signal -58.4429. SMA 20 at 1493.26 and SMA 50 at 1578.85, with price below both averages.
- TCS: Price 2582.00, down 3.48%. Volume 7627041 versus average 5293098 (around 1.44x). RSI (14) 25.38. MACD line -132.3303 and signal -110.1511. SMA 20 at 2921.90 and SMA 50 at 3104.17, with price below both averages.
Bigger picture
The session reflected broad risk-off selling from global cues, but the intensity differed within large-cap IT. HCLTECH recorded the steepest fall and the strongest volume expansion among the three names, indicating more concentrated pressure than INFY and TCS.
This separates basket-level weakness from stock-level liquidation in the same decline and gives a clearer view of how capital moved within the IT segment during the day.