Markets open with volatility, lose to halt 3-day gain in morning trade

Indian markets lost and snapped their rally, after being volatile, during the morning trade on Friday. Sensex dropped 138 points to 62,134.65 levels at 9.39 am as Nifty declined 23 points to 18,460.60 in the early session of Friday.

The cues from US Federal Reserve indicating to go slow on its rate hike is a good news for the global markets. Last week, the global markets picked up the cues and recovered. The domestic markets also picked up from Tuesday this week as majority of stocks gained and snapped their losing run. However, Friday morning saw selling pressures dragging the indices and declined after being volatile.

Among the broad-based indices, BSE SmallCap dropped 74 points to 62,197.70 with ITDC, Religare, Finolex Industries amongst the gainers on the index. BSE MidCap lost 130 points to 62,142.17, with Bank of India, IOB, Max Health and GSPL amongst the active stocks on the index while BSE LargeCap lost 13.98 points to 7,125.77 levels, while Paytm, PNB, DLF and Bank of Baroda among the most active stocks on the index.

Rupee closed higher at 81.63 on Thursday as the dollar index dropped against a basket of world currencies after Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes indicated a less hawkish stance going forward. Asian peers also picked up in the forex market.

US dollar index is a currency index, created by the Federal Reserve, to measure the exchange rate of the USD compared to the nations that it trades with the most, the more trade a country has with the US the more that exchange rate weighs on the index.

Experts said Indian rupee is expected to remain under pressure in 2023, moving between 84 to even hit as low as 85 mark against the US dollar. The rupee is currently around 81.7 against the US currency. However, the local currency weakened significantly by over 10 per cent against the greenback so far in the current year due to macroeconomic uncertainties.