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Sensex falls around 300 points, Nifty touches 11-month low

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Reuters

Reuters Market Eye - The Sensex falls around 200 points, while the Nifty falls 1.8 percent after marking its lowest intraday level in 11 months, extending Friday's 4 percent slump as a record low of rupee weighs.

The rupee fell as much as 62.40 to the dollar in early trade, breaching the previous low of 62.03 hit on Friday as the government's steps unveiled last week seemed inadequate to stall the currency's fall.

Banks slump on tightening short term rates: ICICI Bank Ltd falls 3.4 percent and HDFC Bank Ltd is down 2 percent.

Also, foreign institutional investors sold 5.63 billion rupees of cash shares on Friday, ending a 3-day buying streak, exchange data showed.

 

Asian markets face a tense few days waiting to see if minutes of the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting will provide some clarity on when it might start scaling back stimulus -- with far-reaching implications for borrowing costs across the globe.

(Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi)

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First Published: Aug 19 2013 | 12:25 PM IST

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