The Indian rupee on Wednesday weakened for the fourth consecutive session against the dollar after the local equity markets fell. The local unit opened at 63.33 per dollar and touched a high and a low of 63.31 and 63.66, respectively. At 2.04pm, the home currency was trading at 63.56, down 0.19% from its previous close of 63.44.

The Sensex fell 2.1%, or 574.43 points, to 26,864.12 points. Since 13 April, the local equity markets have fallen by over 2,170 points on the expectation of weak monsoon, muted earnings and threat of minimum alternate tax on foreign funds. The Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have sold $1.73 billion in equity markets in the last eleven out of twelve sessions, except on 21 April when FIIs bought $2.6 billion.

Most of the Asian currencies were trading higher. Malaysian ringgit was up 1.16%, Singapore dollar was up 0.32%, Thai baht was up 0.31%, Philippines peso was up 0.28%, Taiwan dollar was up 0.25%, South Korean won was up 0.21%, Indonesian rupiah was up 0.13%, while China renminbi and China offshore were up 0.1% each.

Bond yield rose after international crude prices hit to a fresh 2015 highs. Brent crude was trading at 68.55, up 1.5% from previous close. The Brent crude has hit a low of 46.59 $/bbl in 13 January 2015 and since then it gained 47.48%.

The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 7.91% compared with its Tuesday’s close of 7.85%. In intraday the bond yield touched a high of 7.92%—a last level seen on 6 January. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has lost 0.74%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $7.21 billion from local equity and $7.45 billion from bond markets.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 94.720, down 0.38% from its previous close of 95.076.

Source:livemint.com