Rupee drops by 10 paise to 75.57 on strong dollar

The rupee depreciated by 10 paise to close at 75.57 against the US dollar on Thursday as strengthening US dollar and weak domestic equities weighed on investor sentiment. Forex traders said sustained foreign fund inflow and the revival of business activities supported the local unit, but concerns about US-China trade tiff dragged the local unit down.

"Indian rupee remained under pressure for the second day amid weaker domestic macro and concerns regarding rising COVID19 cases. Relief rally in dollar index after five days of weakness also weighed on the Indian rupee," said Devarsh Vakil, Head Advisory, HDFC securities. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, rose by 0.34 percent to 97.60.

Coronavirus cases in India saw a record single-day jump of 9,304 cases on Thursday pushing the total tally to 2,16,919, while the death toll climbed to 6,075 with 260 new fatalities, according to the Union health ministry. The rupee opened weak at 75.62 at the interbank forex market and moved in between 75.38 and 75.62 in the day trade.

The local unit settled at 75.57 against the US dollar, down 10 paise over its last close of 75.47. Indian stocks snapped their six-day rally with the benchmark index BSE Sensex dropping by 128.84 points or 0.38 percent to end at 33,980.70. The NSE Nifty declined 32.45 points or 0.32 percent to 10,029.10.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in the capital market as they bought equity shares worth Rs 1,851.12 crore on Wednesday, according to provisional exchange data. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, fell 1.11 percent to USD 39.35 per barrel.

"Rupee ended muted with volatile moves as dollar index was in range-bound trade, also crude prices traded muted which kept buyer & sellers balanced. Overall the trend seems positive for USD/INR till the time it trades above 75.00/USD," said Janeen Trivedi, Senior Research Analyst (Commodity & Currency) at LKP Securities. The Financial Benchmark India Private Ltd (FBIL) set the reference rate for the rupee/dollar at 75.3260 and for rupee/euro at 84.4440. The reference rate for rupee/British pound was fixed at 94.8651 and for rupee/100 Japanese yen at 69.30.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)