The US Fed Reserve spooks markets. Bond trading halted

The Indian financial markets have been spooked by the Fed Reserve's statement on unwinding of the quantitative easing program later this year. While the Indian currency has hit a new all time low of 59.91 against the dollar, the India 10-year bond yield rose 10 basis points to 7.36 percent in the morning, triggering a halt in trading.

The equity markets too are trading down nearly 2% with benchmark Sensex cracking 350 points and Nifty trading down over 100 points at around 5700 levels. The markets worldwide have been taken aback with the statement by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who on Wednesday night said that the US central bank could start winding down its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program later this year and end it altogether by mid-2014.

The market experts were not expecting the QE tapering to start before the December 2013. As a result, the US markets overnight finished the day down 1.35%, with Dow Jones Industrial Average closing at 15112.19. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes jumped 0.126 percentage point to 2.308%, the highest level since March 2012. The dollar strengthened.

Asian markets moved lower in early trading Thursday. The tapering in quantitative easing is likely to affect the global asset classes like emerging market equities and bonds that had seen huge rally on back of easy money flowing into these over last one year.