Indian rupee, after making flat to positive start, lost ground and was trading weak against dollar on Friday tailing massive losses of local equities as encouraging January IIP data and well within RBI’s comfort zone February CPI data failed to buttress the sentiment. On the macro-front, February consumer price index (CPI) rose to 5.37 percent versus 5.11 percent in the previous month, while industry output data (IIP) for January came in at 2.6 percent, higher than the 1.7% in December. Incremental dollar demand by banks and oil importers weighed on local unit. On the global front, US dollar nursed modest losses on Friday after investors booked profits in an extended rally that has driven the greenback to successive multi-year peaks this week.
The partially convertible currency is currently trading at 62.67, weaker by 16 paise from its previous close of 62.51 on Thursday. The currency touched a high and low of 62.70 and 62.43 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 62.56 and for Euro stood at 65.94 on March 12, 2015. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 51.57, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 93.5682. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
| Date | 1US$ | 1GBP |
| March 12, 2015 | 62.56 | 93.5682 |
| March 11, 2015 | 62.74 | 94.6006 |
(RBI-Reference Rate)
