The Indian rupee on Wednesday weakened in the opening trade against the dollar, tracking losses in the Asian currencies markets.

The local currency opened at 61.49 per dollar. At 9.06am, the rupee was trading at 61.47 per dollar, down 0.11% from its previous close of 61.41.India’s benchmark equity index, Sensex, was trading at 29,542.98 points, down 0.09%.

Most of the Asian currencies were trading lower against the dollar. The Singapore dollar was down 0.95%, Malaysian ringgit 0.51%, Thai baht 0.4%, South Korean won 0.36%, Philippines peso 0.25%, Indonesian rupiah 0.21%, Japanese yen 0.15%, China offshore 0.11%.

The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond stood at 7.703% compared with its Tuesday’s close of 7.707%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has strengthen 2.51% against the dollar, while foreign institutional investors have bought $1.24 billion from local equity markets and bought $2.91 billion from debt markets.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 94.292, up 0.29% from its previous close of 94.022.The US Federal Reserve starts a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday which will be keenly watched by investors as it is the first such meeting after last week’s multi-billion dollar bond buying announced by the European Central Bank (ECB) and easier policies announced earlier by Canada and Switzerland.

Source:- livemint.com