Indian rupee plunged nearly 24 paise against the US dollar in opening trades on Thursday, as a selloff in domestic stocks market following global equity rout soured investor sentiment.

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At 09:15 AM, the rupee was trading at 74.46 a dollar, up 25 paise, from its Wednesday’s close of 74.21. The home currency opened at 74.31 and touched a high and a low of 74.30 and 74.48 a dollar, respectively.

Benchmark index Sensex slumped 800 points in early trades on Thursday, tracking selloff in Asia amidst growing worries over global economic growth.

Meanwhile, Asian share markets sank in a sea of red after Wall Street suffered its worst drubbing in eight months.

The dollar was steady against a basket of currencies on Thursday. The dollar index, a gauge of its value against six major currencies, fell 0.11 per cent to 95.407 on Thursday, after hitting a high of 95.79 in the previous session.

The developments in global markets weighed on the rupee, which snapped its six-session losing streak to end 18 paise higher at 74.21 against the US dollar Wednesday.

The rupee is the worst performing emerging market currency having lost almost 15 percent since January this year. Between April and September the rupee has plummeted more than 7 to the dollar.

Rising US interest rates and bond yields have encouraged investors to pull out funds from emerging markets to pocket better returns, analysts said.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net of Rs 1,242 crore Tuesday, provisional data showed.

In debt markets, the yields on the 10-year government bonds declined 0.27 percent to 8.01 percent after closing at 8.03 percent on Wednesday. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

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