IT stocks down, pharma up post Obama’s re-election

New Delhi, Nov 8  Sensex saw IT stocks dip and Pharma companies go up on news of Obama re–election.

Two views are emerging on the future of IT companies that depend on outsourcing from USA under the second term of Obama. One view is that IT companies will face tougher times since Obama had kick-started his campaign with the promise to tighten the screws on outsourcing and those IT companies that manufacture jobs abroad. He in his campaign said US will not go back to the economy of outsourcing and said that there will no tax breaks for IT companies that ship jobs abroad.

IT honchos say that Obama had put a 65,000 cap on IT engineers coming to US and today India's share is only 7%. This will decrease further which means the costs will rise with Indian IT companies being forced to hire locally. This means a fall in profits and Europe an alternative market is suffering from a slowdown.

Obama's first priority is to address the fiscal deficit and create more jobs by increasing production. Some point out that IT companies of US origin today have more staff in India than back home. More stringent checks on visa has already seen Infosys and Wipro hiring locally from US while other countries are still depending on people back home.

Yet another view is that Obama would give up anti-outsourcing stance and that it was just an election campaign to garner votes. Indians in large numbers supported Obama in the US elections and now that IT firms are hiring from local talent, it would be China that could face the flak.

Yet another view is that new healthcare launched by Obama could actually benefit the IT companies who would help set up the infrastructure. The major beneficiary is the pharma sector that stands to get major orders under this scheme.