Mumbai:- In a highly volatile trade, the rupee maintained its edge against the American currency for the second day today and appreciated by a modest 3 paise to close at 66.82.
Trading has been thin and confined to extremely narrow range in the absence of any market moving factors even as resurgent dollar remained in spotlight on the currency market.
Sluggish domestic equities and persistent capital outflows largely pressurised the Indian unit, a forex dealer said.
The home currency opened substantially lower at 66.93 from Monday’s closing level of 66.85 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market as sustained dollar demand from importers fairly weighed on trade.
However, some dollar selling by corporates and bank predominantly helped the rupee to recover towards the tail-end trade to settle at 66.82, revealing a gain of 3 paise, or 0.04 per cent.
In worldwide trade, the American currency remained fairly strong against all major and emerging market currencies on expectations of US interest rate hike by year-end in the face of positive comments from a Federal Reserve official and solid US manufacturing activity overnight.
The firmer greenback is also contributing to China’s renminbi hitting a fresh multi-year low.
Meanwhile, the euro hovered near its weakest in almost eight months.
The dollar index, which measures its broader strength against a basket of currencies, was up 0.14 per cent at 98.78.
The RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.8777 and euro at 72.7897.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee rebounded modestly against the pound sterling to finish at 81.73 from 81.86 and regained against euro to end at 72.72 as compared to 72.87 yesterday.
It also firmed up against the Japanese yen to close at 63.95 from 64.30 per 100 yens earlier. .
PTI
