And that means Indian investors had better watch out for a nasty bite if the Nasdaq turns vicious. India, which for a long time had no correlation with Wall Street, has been sucked closer to global trends by the emergence of information technology companies, led by Infosys.

The first thing Indian analysts do each morning is check how Infosys' ADR fared on Nasdaq overnight for a view of the domestic market. So far it has been a one-way street - up. Infosys, which just over a year ago did not figure in the bellwether Bombay top 30 index, now has a 17 per cent weighting. On Monday, the first day of trading in 2000, the index leapt over 7.5 per cent to record highs, but most technology stocks, including Infosys, hit an 8 per cent circuit breaker in the morning.

Infosys was frozen at Rs 15,677.50 up 1,161.25. ``The rise of Infosys goes hand-in-hand with its rise on the Nasdaq,'' said Yeshwant Kini, analyst at SG Asia Securities. Though a computer software firm focusing on the services business, the firm's recent strides in making software for e-commerce and e-business clients is the chief reason behind the massive surge of its ADRs, analysts said.

``Apart from the highly valued Net companies in the US, software services companies that are making and maintaining websites for Net companies are also highly sought after,'' said analyst at SBI Capital Markets Shekhar Singh.

Analysts expect Infosys e-commerce software revenues to touch 15-20 per cent of total revenues in the third quarter, up from 6.4 per cent in the first quarter of the fiscal year to March 2000. The Infosys ADR, which represents just 3.12 per cent of the firm's equity, ended at $330 on Friday - an 870 per cent premium to its offer price in March of $34. At two ADRs per local share the premium over the domestic share price is over 100 per cent.

India's foreign investment rules block any arbitrage between the two markets. Infosys' domestic Rs 10 share ended 1999 at Rs 14,516.25, up over 350 per cent since the ADR float in March. In turn, Mumbai's 30-share index has surged 64 per cent in 1999 - albeit helped by the re-election of a reformist Government in October and a gradual recovery in industrial growth rates