Indian rupee, snapping four consecutive sessions’ appreciating streak and shrugging all the morning gains, depreciated on Wednesday, tailing colossal losses of local equity markets that ended with a cut of over a percent. Meanwhile, fresh bouts of dollar demand from banks and importers also pressurized Indian currency. Surprisingly, losses of Indian currency also came despite the weakness of American currency after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated its commitment to easy policy, echoing dovish comments from Chair nominee Janet Yellen last week. In a speech, Bernanke said that while the economy had made significant progress, it was still far from where officials wanted it to be. Nevertheless, investors’ nervousness ahead of release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's October meeting, for clues about when Fed might start tapering its monetary stimulus, also added to the pessimistic milieu for the Indian currency.
Finally the rupee ended at 62.58, weaker by 22 paise from its previous close of 62.36 on Tuesday. The currency has touched a high and low of 62.67 and 62.25 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 62.55 and for Euro it stood at 84.71 on November 20, 2013. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 62.51, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 100.7747. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.
