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MUMBAI: The rupee broke the psychologically crucial 90 mark against the US dollar for the first time and slid to an intra-day low of 90.29 against the greenback on Wednesday before settling 32 paise below Tuesday’s close at 90.19, extending a decline that now threatens to spill over into the wider economy.

The currency has weakened 5.5% since Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcement on April 2. So far this year, foreign portfolio investors have withdrawn over $17 billion, while several private equity players have cashed out during billion-dollar IPOs by some of the marquee startups, adding to outflows from India. What has heightened the pressure in recent months is higher gold and silver prices, which resulted in a record imports and trade deficit in Oct.

A report by SBI research team said in terms of number of days, this is the quickest Rs 5 fall against the dollar as the Indian currency slipped from 85 to 90 in less than a year, despite RBI seeking to intervene to check a steep fall.Weaker Rs. to raise cost of importsA weaker currency raises the cost of imports — from fuel to electronics — putting pressure on prices, while making overseas education, travel and medical treatment more expensive. It, however, makes remittances from overseas as well as export earnings more attractive at a time when the economy is grappling with the impact of steep 50% tariffs in the US.Bankers said while a weaker rupee raises risks of imported inflation, a controlled depreciation will solve several problems for the central bank. It would improve share valuations in dollar terms, address the current account deficit and help the RBI conserve its reserves.

Uday Kotak

Unlike the sensex, rupee remains hostage to the outside world. Persistent FPI exits, a record trade deficit driven by costly oil, metals and electronics imports and a firm dollar have kept pressure on the currency. “This breach of 90 triggered multiple stop losses, and RBI’s intervention capped the fall with an all-time low of 90.21 for now,” said forex consultant K N Dey, who attributed part of the slide to bets in the offshore market against the rupee and “net negative equity inflows of more than $18 billion since Jan 2025.” Even last week’s 8.2% GDP data, he said, failed to lift the sentiment. Until recently, equities and the rupee moved in tandem: foreign money flowed in, the currency strengthened and the BSE sensex rallied; money flowed out, rupee slipped and markets corrected. That rhythm snapped this week. Sensex climbed past 86,000 even as the rupee broke 90 per dollar for the first time, signalling a structural break in the traditional linkage between Dalal Street and the FX market.

US president Donald Trump

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US president Donald Trump

The crash Tuesday in the crypto miner American Bitcoin Corp. was instantaneous. At 9.31am on Wall Street, just one minute after trading started, its shares were down 33%. Five minutes later, losses had ballooned to 42% and then, by 9.56am, to more than 50%.It was all so spectacular that American Bitcoin became the symbol of not just the crypto market wipe-out of late 2025 but also the collapse of the myriad ventures that the Trump family has been promoting in the digital-currency world over the past year. For as much as broader crypto markets have sunk these past two months — roughly 25% in the case of bellwether Bitcoin — projects that are tied to the Trump family are down far, far more. World Liberty Financial, co-founded by President Donald Trump and his sons, has seen its WLFI token tumble 51% from its peak in early Sept, more than both Bitcoin and an index of smaller digital tokens. Alt5 Sigma, a company promoted by the Trump sons, has plunged around 75% as it deals with a growing number of legal problems.Then there are the memecoins named after the president and his wife, Melania, which have fallen around 90% and 99% respectively from their record highs back in Jan. American Bitcoin, which was co-founded by Eric Trump, is now down 75% after the big drop on Tuesday. It rose 11% in US premarket trading on Wednesday.These moves have put a dent in the piles of crypto wealth that the first family amassed earlier this year. But they also carry a broader significance for both the digital asset industry and the president’s public image. Trump’s embrace helped boost a wide array of crypto tokens during the early months of his second term and turned the price of Bitcoin into a marker of his political success.Now, though, what looked like a Trump premium has suddenly turned into a Trump drag, taking out one of the central pillars holding up crypto assets and offering an indication of just how quickly confidence in these speculative markets — and even in the president himself — can dissolve. “The Trump presidency has been a double edged sword for legitimacy,” said Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. “Trump started launching his own crypto projects, many of which lost value quickly. If the goal was to achieve legitimacy through the Trump family, that’s not helped.”World Liberty Financial and the firm behind Trump’s memecoin, Fight Fight Fight, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Eric Trump took to social media on Tuesday to blame American Bitcoin’s bad performance on the end of a lockup period for its shares, rather than any broader weakness. “Our fundamentals are virtually unmatched,” he wrote on X. “I’m 100% committed to leading the industry.”The dramatic moves in the assets associated with the Trump family are not new for an industry that has been defined by its volatility. Digital tokens have experienced big drops before, before bouncing back. On Tuesday, as American Bitcoin struggled, the original cryptocurrency had one of its best days in the last few weeks, rising around 6%.