Rupee hits five week high on Fed’s status quo stance; RBI’s mid-quarterly policy review eyed

19 Sep 2013 Evaluate

Indian rupee, hitting its highest in nearly five weeks, surged 2.6% on Thursday on U.S. Federal Reserve's decision of not dialing back its easy money policy and well ahead of RBI's mid-quarter policy review tomorrow. The Indian currency, in line with most of emerging market currency gained on hopes of Fed’s status quo stance in its QE3 programme, which led to spectacular rally of close to four percent at Indian equity markets. Meanwhile, increased dollar demand amidst its weakness in the overseas markets, also added to upside trigger for the local unit. Further, Fed’s  decision, which also is expected to provide a reprieve to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its policy making, given if it wants to roll back some of the cash tightening steps it initiated since mid-July to stabilize the plunging rupee, buttressed the sentiments. On the global front, dollar struggled near a seven-month low against a basket of major currencies on Thursday after the Federal Reserve wrong-footed many investors who had positioned for a scaling back in its massive stimulus programme.

Finally the rupee ended at 61.77, stronger by 1.60 paise from its previous close of 63.37 on Wednesday. The currency touched a high and low of 62.08 and 61.64 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 61.74 and for Euro it stood at 83.54 on September 19, 2013. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 62.74, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 99.5625. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.

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