Rupiah and rupee lead currency slide

Rupiah and rupee lead currency slide
PHOTO: Rupiah and rupee lead currency slide

JAKARTA - India's rupee crashed to a record low and the Indonesian rupiah hit a four-year trough yesterday, as the expected withdrawal of United States monetary stimulus prompts investors to shun emerging markets burdened by weak external balances, slowing economies and inflation.

They followed a slide on Friday in Brazil's real, a currency that - like the rupee - has been hammered by investor doubts that actions taken by local monetary authorities last week will prove effective in stemming the sell-off.

"Our primary concern is that the policy authorities still don't 'get it' - thinking this is a fairly minor squall which will simmer down relatively quickly with fairly minor actions," Mr Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist at Credit Suisse in Singapore, wrote in a note on the Indian currency.

Growing expectations that the US Federal Reserve will start scaling back its bond purchases as early as next month have weighed on many emerging markets.

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.