Mumbai: The rupee today recovered by 5 paise against the US currency to end at 66.70 on stray dollar selling by banks and exporters even as stock markets continued to decline. In yet another day of range-bound trade, the rupee-dollar outright spot dealings remained quiet due to lack of market-moving factors. Excess volatility and movements of the US dollar in global trade largely weighed on trade during the day, but the home currency withstood the midsession volatile momentum. Continued selling by FIIs in equities and debt on the back of wavering global financial markets restricted the rupee gains, a forex dealer said.
The rupee today resumed marginally up at 66.73 compared with Thursday’s closing value of 66.75 at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange (forex) market and confined to narrow trading band 66.70 and 66.7650 through the session as scattered dollar demand was absorbed by the adequate supplies. It finally settled at 66.70, revealing a gain of 5 paise, or 0.07 per cent. The home currency had lost 4 paise yesterday. On the global front, the American currency traded little changed against all major trading partners after a failed attempt to bounce back.
The dollar Index, which measures its broader strength against a basket of currencies, was down 0.02 per cent at 97.17 in the afternoon trade. The RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.7219 and euro at 74.0546. In cross-currency trades, the rupee remained under immense pressure against the pound sterling to end at 83.30 from 82.88 and fell back against the euro to close at 74.03 from 73.87 yesterday. It also dropped against the Japanese yen and finished at 65.21 from 64.68 per 100 yens earlier.
Meanwhile, domestic bourses plunged to their lowest levels in nearly four months as selloff deepened on growing anxiety among investors over the US presidential election next Tuesday. Foreign investors offloaded equities worth Rs 343.30 crore on net basis today, as per the provisional exchange data. They had sold shares worth a net Rs 706.77 crore yesterday. The benchmark BSE Sensex tumbled over 156 points to end at 27,274.15, while broder Nifty shed 51 points to 8,433.75.
In the forward market, premium for dollar declined due to fresh receiving by exporters. The benchmark six-month premium for April moved down to 173.5-175.5 paise from 174.5-176.5 paise and the forward- October 2017 contract edged lower to 349-351 paise from 350.5-352.5 paise yesterday. Crude prices continued to trade with high volatility and on course for their sixth straight day of falls on Friday.
PTI