Sensex slips 150 points as US Fed hints of taper return

Indian equity and currency markets opened in red today after minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s October meeting hinted at stimulus tapering, while the euro was pressured by speculation of more easing by the European Central Bank.

Globally, Asian stocks too dropped on talk of the Fed’s stimulus withdrawal, with MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index both shedding about 0.3 percent. Federal Reserve officials indicated at the bank’s October 29-30 policy meeting that they could decide to start scaling back the asset purchases at one of its next few meetings provided this was warranted by economic growth.

[caption id=“attachment_1040443” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption]

While BSE Sensex opened 150 points at 20483, NSE Nifty opened 47 points lower at 6074.

Banking stocks were the top Nifty losers.Axis Bank was down 2 percent, PNB down 1.9 percent, Kotak was down 1.8 percent, HDFC Bank was down 1.7 percent while Bank of Baroda down 1.6 percent.

More from Investing

MSMEs are breaking the traditional convention. Look who’s funding them Scale-up your startup without an investor! Here’s how

Even the Indian rupee was weak at 62.67 as the US dollar stood tall.

Himanshu Arora, Religare told CNBC-TV18, “Dollar-rupee pair is expected to trade higher in today’s session amid weakness in equities and fresh month-end dollar demand from oil companies.” “Further expectations of tapering by Fed may also keep rupee under pressure. The range for the day is seen between 62.38-62.88/USD,” he added.