BLBG: India's Rupee Falls as Stock Slide Raises Fund-Outflow Concern
By Anil Varma
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- India's rupee fell the most in almost a week on concern tumbling equities worldwide will spur investors to take more money out of the nation's financial market.
The currency declined for a second day as Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost as much as 10.4 percent after the benchmark U.S. stock index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, slid 7.9 percent yesterday. Equities worldwide lost more than $6 trillion in market value in the first 14 days of this month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
``The rupee is significantly weaker, tracking the falling global stock markets,'' said Paresh Nayar, head of currency and debt trading at Development Credit Bank Ltd. in Mumbai. ``The rupee has weakened in the overseas non-deliverable forward market too, as the Dow and Asian indexes tumbled.''
The rupee dropped as much 1.1 percent to 49.05 a dollar before trading at 48.95 as of 9:43 a.m. in Mumbai, Bloomberg data show. The currency's 19.5 percent loss this year is the biggest among Asia's 11 most-active currencies, after the South Korean won.
Indian stock sales by overseas investors exceeded purchases this year by a record $11 billion, data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India show.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anil Varma in Mumbai at avarma3@bloomberg.net.