The Indian rupee again fell below 70 against the United States dollar briefly on Thursday morning. The currency fell to 70.08 earlier before recovering to 70 at 10.25 am. The rupee had last closed at 69.81 on Tuesday – the foreign exchange market was closed on Wednesday for Bakrid.
The rupee lost as the dollar gained ground in international markets after the US central bank released details of its last policy meeting, which showed policymakers were likely to raise interest rates soon. Higher interest rates mean the US economy continues to recover since the lows of the recession of 2008, and this strengthens the currency.
The benchmark stock indices began the day by extending gains from Tuesday, but shed the record levels within an hour. At 10.25 am, the BSE Sensex was trading at 38,271.83, down 13.92 points since Tuesday, and the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty 50 was at 11,572.50, up 1.60 points.
Earlier in the day, the Nifty 50 had breached the 11,600 mark for the first time. The Sensex had also reached an all-time high of 38,467.63 points.
The top five gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid Corporation of India, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel and HDFC. The stocks that lost the most were Tata Motors, Vedanta, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India and Tata Steel.
On Nifty 50, the top five stocks were Lupin, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, HCL Technologies and Hindustan Unilever. The stocks with the highest losses were Tata Motors, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Vedanta and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation. Scroll
