As India reports an increasing number of Coronavirus positive cases, on the one hand, a similar rate is followed by the Indian rupee, albeit in the downward direction, again due to the novel virus. The rupee fell further to a record low of 74.44 against US Dollar amid the Coronavirus fear.
A day earlier, the rupee went down to a new record low at 74.44 as the financial markets and the economy continue to feel the ripples of the deadly virus which went on to affect thousands of people and kill around 5,000 currently as it stands, across the globe. Investors are worried as they anticipate a possible economic recession due to the pandemic.
Shift a little, and you also see the global crude oil benchmark Brent Futures which fell 0.87% to trade at USD 32.93 per barrel.
For the ones in a rush for the US Dollars in the Forex markets, lives were made a tad easy by the Reserve Bank with the announcement of the liquidity measures such as buy-sell swap of USD 2 billion to increase dollar availability with banks and ease pressure on the rupee. In the current month so far, FPIs have pulled out a whopping 33,163 crore (USD 4.46 billion) from Indian capital markets.
All this didn’t leave the Indian equity market behind in terms of damage as the volatile market on Friday, saw the Sensex plummeting by over 3,000 points to fall below the 30,000 mark and likewise the NSE gauge Nifty tumbling down by 1,000 points to fall below the 9,000 mark. Indian bourses halted trading for 45 minutes during the early session after both the benchmark indices Sensex, and Nifty hit their lower circuit limits.