Indian rupee, erasing all the intra-day gains, ended almost flat with negative bias on Wednesday on account of prevailing caution ahead of FOMC minutes later in the day. However, the losses of Indian currency was limited on account of record high close of local equity markets on hopes of victory of business-friendly reformer Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led government in General elections 2014-15 with the start of second phase of polls in four states today, namely Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Nevertheless, Indian currency akin to equity markets got off to a strong start after IMF's forecasted improved growth prospects for India. However, soon gave away gains on dollar demand from oil importers and banks apparently to shore up their foreign exchange reserves. On the global front, dollar bounced back a third of a percent against the yen on Wednesday after its biggest fall in more than seven months against the Japanese currency.
Finally, the rupee ended at 60.14, little changed from its previous close of 60.11 on Monday. The currency touched a high and low of 60.15 and 59.82 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 60.07 and for Euro stood at 82.78 on April 09, 2014. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 58.88, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 100.5639. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
