Rising for the fifth consecutive day, Indian rupee ended considerably stronger against dollar on Monday, on continued selling of the American currency by exporters and banks. Sentiments remained buoyant with former Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya’s statement that the government has made a huge progress in implementing reforms including some difficult structural ones such as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) that previous governments had difficulty in introducing. He also said that the Centre should stick to the fiscal deficit target for 2018-19. Besides, good gains in the local equity markets coupled with dollar losing sheen against some other currencies overseas mainly aided the currency’s appreciation. On the global front, dollar was modestly lower against its key rivals on Monday after Federal Reserve officials expressed caution over the global growth outlook, prompting traders to reassess the pace of future US interest rate increases.
Finally, the rupee ended at 71.67, 26 paise stronger from its previous close of 71.93 on Friday. The currency touched a high and low of 72.08 and 71.54 respectively. The reference rate for the dollar stood at 71.90 and for Euro stood at 81.94 on November 19, 2018. While the reference rate for the Yen stood at 63.74, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 92.19. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
