Mumbai, Sept 12: A robust dollar should have brought smiles to the faces of top executives at software exporters such as Infosys Technologies.

But not this time.

Industry executives are sporting furrowed brows as the US dollar starts to gouge value out of the British pound sterling, the euro and the Australian dollar.

As the currency turmoil spreads to the regions that the technology titans have identified as alternative markets to the US where technology spending has started to slow, the Cassandras have come out with spooky forecasts about dollar-denominated revenue prospects for companies such as Infosys.

All through last year, tech titans such as Infosys were complaining about a rampant rupee. When the local currency started to slide early this year, there was a sense of relief in Bangalore’s Silicon Valley.

So, it is a little paradoxical that just when the dollar has started to harden, the worry lines should start to deepen.

CLSA — a leading brokerage in the Asia-Pacific markets — today forecast that Infosys will almost certainly fall short of its US dollar revenue guidance for both the September quarter and the full year 2008-09 because of the greenback’s rise against the pound and the euro.

Infosys derives around 28 per cent of its revenues from these currencies. As the US dollar has appreciated nearly 13 per cent against the pound and the euro this quarter, these invoices (in cross currencies) will result in less dollars when converted.

“The adverse movement of these currencies against the US dollar is creating a cross-currency headwind. The 19- 21 per cent 2008-09 US dollar revenue growth guidance will need to be revised down to 17-19 per cent, a two percentage points cut in the least,” Bhavtosh Vajpayee and Nimish Joshi said in a report after meeting the company management.

The brokerage said that the six per cent sequential US dollar revenue growth guidance for the September quarter would most likely be missed, once again because of the cross-currency effect.

CLSA was not alone in making this forecast. UBS AG also voiced a similar concern.

Harit Shah, IT analyst at Angel Broking, told The Telegraph that the dollar guidance of Infosys was now seriously at risk.

The concern comes at a time when IT companies are confronting the twin factors of a global credit crisis and a worldwide economic slowdown.

CLSA claimed that the leading honchos at Infosys believed that it could take two quarters for a visible recovery in sentiment.

“The CEO, Kris Gopalakrishnan, added that clients continue to be hesitant in making decisions,” the CLSA note said.

The Bangalore-based company admitted that a strong dollar could impact its dollar earnings, though senior officials led by V. Balakrishnan, its chief financial officer, said it was too early at this stage to ascertain the precise impact.

They felt that some of the damage wrought by cross-currency headwind would be offset by the gains arising from a weakening rupee — and that margins might not suffer.

However, the markets took the new revelations seriously, punishing the Infosys stock along with others in the IT sector. On the BSE, Infosys plummeted six per cent to Rs 1,644.10.

The BSE IT index was down 4.60 per cent with shares such as TCS dipping three per cent, Wipro by 1.7 per cent and Satyam Computers by 3.5 per cent.

The sensex fell 323.48 points to end the day at 14000.81 points.

Among other major losers, Reliance Infra was down 6.32 per cent, ICICI Bank 4.89 per cent, HDFC 3.84 per cent, DLF 3.64 per cent, Reliance 3.31 per cent, Sterlite 3.11 per cent, Jaiprakash 2.96 per cent and Tata Motors 2.90 per cent.

The market breadth remained extremely negative as 1,848 counters registered losses while 818 others closed with gains.

The trading volume, however, improved to Rs 5,103.17 crore from Rs 4,798.08 crore on Thursday. RIL remained the top traded scrip with the highest turnover of Rs 453.54 crore followed by Reliance Capital (Rs 313.37 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 208.63 crore), Reliance Infra (Rs 175.23 crore) and RNRL (Rs 160.71 crore).

The broad-based BSE-100 index tumbled by another 151.25 points, or 2.02 per cent, to 7,344.37 from its previous close.