From growth slowdown to equity outflows: Why the rupee has lost its mojo

Current Affairs

The rupee’s resilience in the face economic headwinds has come to an end, with India’s currency losing its year-to-date gains in the space of just one month.
The country’s massive domestic market is now dragging on the rupee as growth at home slows, foreigners pull cash from local equities and the currency increasingly tracks moves in the yuan as the trade war heats up.
“Even though India is directly less vulnerable to US-China tensions, it can’t remain completely insulated to the wider risk aversion,” said Dushyant Padmanabhan, a forex strategist at Nomura Holdings Inc in Singapore. The economic slowdown and capital outflows don’t bode well for the rupee, he said.
The rupee is set for its worst monthly loss in six years and some analysts warn of more pain to come. JPMorgan Chase & Co expects it to approach the record low hit last October by year-end, while Nomura forecasts the currency to finish 2019 at 72.5 per dollar. That’s weaker than the median estimate of 71 in a Bloomberg survey and Wednesday’s opening level of 71.49.
Here are some of the reasons behind the currency’s rapid reversal:
Growth Slowdown

 Demand for everything from cars to cookies has waned as India’s lingering shadow-banking crisis weighs on private consumption, which accounts for almost 60% of the gross domestic product. And the increasingly bitter trade war has complicated the government’s task of re-igniting Asia’s third-largest economy...Read More