Indian rupee ended marginally higher against dollar on Thursday, on persistent selling of the American currency by exporters and healthy gains in domestic equity markets. Traders took support with private report penning that the ongoing economic recovery will quickly take India above the pre-pandemic levels in most sectors of the economy, adding that the improved health of the Indian financial sector is also a positive factor for economic growth. However, upside remain capped with former RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya’s statement that he is worried about US tapering coinciding with RBI's rate tightening, and warned that barring high forex reserves, domestic conditions are the same as the ones during the 2013 'taper tantrums'. Meanwhile, RBI stated that India’s holding of IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) have gone up to SDR 13.66 billion which is equivalent to USD 19.41 billion as per exchange rate. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes the general SDR allocation to its members in proportion to their existing quotas in the multilateral lending agency. On the global front; sterling edged higher on Thursday, driven by dollar weakness after disappointing U.S. labor data, while traders waited for the fuller jobs report on Friday to give new momentum to currency markets.
Finally, the rupee ended 73.06, stronger by 2 paise from its previous close of 73.08 on Wednesday. The currency touched a high and low of 73.13 and 72.96 respectively.
