Asian markets were poised to fall on Wednesday after hawkish rhetoric from Jerome Powell rattled risk sentiment in the U.S. and drove the dollar higher against all of its major peers.
All major U.S. benchmarks slid more than 1%, with the S&P 500 Index falling the most in two weeks.
During a Senate testimony, the Federal Reserve’s chief signaled officials are ready to speed up the pace of tightening and take rates to higher levels should inflation keep running hot.
Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced to 3.98%. Crude prices were trading around $83-mark, while Bitcoin was trading below 22,500-level.
At 6:05 a.m., the Singapore-traded SGX Nifty, an early indicator of India’s benchmark Nifty 50, was down 0.83% at 17,705.
At the start of the week, both Indian benchmark indices—the Sensex and Nifty—closed almost 0.7% higher, led by advances in IT, and oil and gas stocks.
The rupee strengthened against the U.S. dollar for the second day in a row on the back of a rise in domestic equities and foreign fund inflows.
Overseas investors in Indian equities remained net buyers for the third day in a row on Monday. Foreign portfolio investors bought equities worth Rs 721.37 crore, while the domestic institutional investors were also net buyers for the ninth straight day and mopped up stocks worth Rs 757.23 crore.
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