The Indian rupee had gained power against the US dollar in the last four days rallying as much as 58 paise in the foreign exchange market. The domestic currency has been on a rising trend since Monday this week after it slipped to nearly a 2-month low against the US dollar. Today only, the rupee surged about 9 paise to 63.82 apiece US dollar at the interbank foreign exchange market. The Reserve Bank of India fixed a reference rate of 63.9222 against the US dollar on Thursday. The rupee opened at 63.89 against US dollar in the early morning trades on Friday. Earlier yesterday, the rupee tripped below the 64-mark against the US dollar gaining as much as 18 paise to close at 63.91 against the US currency.
On Thursday, the inflation based on wholesale prices eased to a six-month low of 2.84% in January on cheaper food articles even as vegetable prices continued to rule high. Earlier on Wednesday this week, the rupee had settled 23 paise higher at 64.09 against the US dollar. Meanwhile, the dollar slipped to a three-year low against a basket of currencies on Friday, headed for its biggest weekly loss in two years, as bearish factors offset the support the US dollar could take from rising Treasury yields, Reuters said in a report. The stock markets and foreign exchange markets were closed on Tuesday on the account of Maha Shivratri.
Meanwhile today, Indian equities started on a positive note with BSE Sensex surging over 200 points and Nifty crossing the 10,600-level following the positive global as the major US indices extended their gains in yesterday’s trades. In the late morning deals, the key equity indices pared off most of the gains and turned flat with benchmark Sensex trading at 34,306.15 and the broader Nifty trading at 10,547.15, both up by 0.2%. Shares of Punjab National Bank continued to fall even today also after the second largest state-run lender detected a fraud of about $1.77 billion or Rs 11,400 crore. A sudden profit-booking in the shares of Yes Bank, Sun Pharma, SBI, Maruti Suzuki, Power Grid and Bajaj Auto slipped into the red. The S&P BSE Sensex rose as much as 210.77 points to hit the day’s high of 34,508.24 while NSE Nifty inched up 67.4 points to mark the day’s peak at 10,612.9. Shares of Infosys, TCS, Dr Reddy’s and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the only notable gainers among the Sensex components.
Source: financialexpress.com