Rupee hits record low; Stocks tumble

Indian stock markets slumped further in trades after rupee went past the record low of 61.21 in Tuesday’s morning trades.

The currency traded at 61.49 a dollar from Monday's close of 60.88 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange Market. This is the record low level of the currency till date.

Mirroring the concerns, the 30-share Sensex dropped 190 points at 18,992  and the 50-share Nifty fell 68 points at 5,618 levels.

Asian shares dropped to 2-week low after the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank is closer to slowing bond purchases that have stoked global equity gains.

Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.2% to 14,296, Singapore Straits Times fell 0.7% to 3,216, China’s Shanghai Composite index was down 0.1%  at 2,047 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 1.5% to 21,877 today.

Domestically, all the key sectoral indices dropped with realty, banks, oil & gas, consumer durable  sectors declined on the BSE.

The gainers included counters such as HDFC  rising 0.6%, TCS and Wipro  gained 0.5% and 0.2% respectively, HUL  rose 0.1% on the BSE.

The laggards were BHEL declining 3%, Tata Steel shed 1.3%, Coal India dropped 1 % while ICICI Bank was down 1.4% on the BSE.

The key notablemovers included counters such as Financial Technologies that has slipped 15% to Rs 168 on reports that the government has asked the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL), a subsidiary of the company, to discontinue trading in e-series contracts.

Engineers India has dipped 6% to Rs 127 after reporting 16% year-on-year (yoy) decline in net profit at Rs 129 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2013 (Q1), due to fall in operational income. The state-owned consulting services firm had profit of Rs 154 crore in a year ago quarter.

The broader markets traded lower with mid-caps and small-caps falling 1.4-2 per cent on the BSE.

The market breadth was negative. Out of 1,215 stocks traded, 843 stocks declined while 326 stocks advanced on the BSE.