At 10:20am, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs46.23/24 per dollar, above its close of Rs46.29/30 on Monday
Mumbai: The Indian rupee rose to new one-month highs on Tuesday boosted by gains in shares and higher Asian currencies but demand for U.S. dollar from oil firms and importers limited gains.
At 10:20am, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs46.23/24 per dollar, above its close of Rs46.29/30 on Monday. In early deals, the rupee rose to Rs46.22, its highest since 4 December.
“There seems to be some profit-taking, offshore demand is also not heard of today, like yesterday,” the chief dealer with a large private bank said. “There are good inflows seen from stocks, this is expected to continue this quarter at least.”
In 2009, foreign portfolio buying of domestic stocks, totalling more than $17 billion, helped the rupee rise 12% from a record low of 52.2 in early March. The rupee gained 4.7% for the year as a whole.
Most regional currencies were stronger compared to the dollar on Tuesday. The dollar index against six major currencies was down 0.3%.
Traders were also watching shares for cues on fund flows.
Indian shares rose 0.9% in early deals on Tuesday, led by Reliance Industries and banks, taking cues from the gains in global markets.
One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at Rs46.20/30, little changed from the onshore spot rate.
In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were both quoting at Rs46.30 respectively, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $745 million.
On Monday, the combined volumes on the two exchanges reached $6 billion, touching a record high.
