Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Wednesday hit a two-month high against the United States dollar, while 10-year bond yield hit a seven-year low, as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to buy in local equity and debt markets.
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Dealers attributed the rupee’s fall to increased demand for the USA currency, but dollar’s weakness against some currencies overseas restricted the losses.
The domestic unit hovered in a range of 66.91 and 66.81 to a dollar during the day before finishing at 66.85, showing a loss of 13 paise or 0.19 per cent.
The rupee had dropped to 66.98 a dollar on dollar demand from banks and importers ahead of announcement of RBI policy in the morning.
The Dollar Index was trading up 0.22 per cent against a basket of six currencies in late afternoon trade.
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 66.96 and for Euro stood at 74.17.
The rupee trimmed some of the gains due to weak equity markets, he added.
The Indian currency ended flat at 66.84/$.
Asian currencies gained. South Korean won was up 0.86%, Taiwan dollar 0.74%, Japanese yen 0.53%, Japanese yen 0.5%, Thai baht 0.32%, Singapore dollar 0.22%, Philippines peso 0.18%, China offshore 0.13%, China renminbi 0.13% and Indonesian rupiah 0.08%.
Oil prices fell for a third day in Asia trade on Thursday, after data showing high USA crude oil stockpiles and increased the Saudi production.
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Meanwhile, the benchmark BSE Sensex recovered by 58.12 points or 0.20 per cent to 28,143.28 in early trade on Wednesday. Foreign portfolio investors and foreign institutional investors bought shares worth a net of Rs 144.15 crore today, as per provisional data released by stock exchanges.
