Indian rupee ended stronger against dollar on Friday, due to increased selling of the American currency by banks and exporters. Rupee throughout the day remained positive, taking support with Moody’s Investor Service raising India’s government bond rating, citing continued progress in the nation’s economic and institutional reforms. The rating agency upgraded India’s bond rating to ‘stable’ (Baa2) from ‘positive’ (Baa3) and said reforms being pushed through by the government will help stabilize debt. Some encouragement also came with RBI Governor C Rangarajan’s statement who said the inflation, which rose to 3.58% in October, may ease by December and end up below 4% by the end of the current fiscal. Furthermore, dollar weakened against some currencies overseas together with good going in the local equity markets, mainly aided the currency’s appreciation. On the global front, dollar slipped to a four-week low against yen on Friday, after reports that investigators probing possible Russian interference in the 2016 US election had subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s election campaign for documents.
Finally, the rupee ended at 65.01, 30 paise stronger from its previous close of 65.31 on Thursday. The currency touched a high and low of 65.07 and 64.63 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 64.84 and for Euro stood at 76.55 on November 17, 2017. While the RBI's reference rate for the Yen stood at 57.59, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 85.78. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
