Rupee Rises For Second Day, Closes At 72.20 Against Dollar: 10 Things To Know

Extending its rise to a second straight session, the rupee rose 17 paise against the US dollar to settle at 72.20 on Friday. The rupee touched its highest level in more than two weeks to return to 71 levels in intraday trade but gave up most of those gains by the end of the session. The government is planning to ask state oil firms to lock in their crude futures purchase prices, news agency Reuters cited a government source as saying. Analysts say such a move would provide some support to the rupee in the short term. For the week, the rupee declined 0.5 per cent.

Here are 10 things to know about movement in the rupee against the US dollar on Friday:

1. The rupee rose as much as 71.84 against the US dollar during the session. However, it returned to 72 levels by the end of the day.

2. Selling of the dollar by exporters and banks, along with weakness in the greenback overseas amid easing of concerns of the US-China trade war, trade supported the rupee, news agency Press Trust of India cited forex dealers as saying.

3, Global credit ratings agency Fitch revised its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth projection for India to 7.8 per cent for 2018-19, from 7.4 per cent.

4. Analysts attributed the recent recovery in the rupee to a combination of factors.

5. "Market has become cognizant of the fact that government will be vigilant henceforth on rupee management and additional policy measures could be on the anvil. Improvement in global risk appetite across asset classes has helped Asian forex and rupee," said Madhavi Arora, economist, FX and rates at Edelweiss Securities.

6. A special oil window for oil-related dollar buying would temporarily reduce spot dollar buying and ease the pressure on the rupee, said IFA Global, a forex advisory firm. The dollar index - which measures the dollar against six major currencies - rose against a basket of major currencies on Friday, but eased for the week. Crude oil edged up to stay close to four-year highs near $80 a barrel, ahead of a key meeting by the top producers on Sunday.

7. The government last week announced measures to curb the rupee fall. This included plans to cut "non-essential imports".

8. While noting that the recent measures announced by the government would provide immediate support to the rupee, Salil Datar, CEO and executive director, Essel Finance VKC Forex, said: "Certainly these measures are not strong enough interventions to help reining in the rupee to sub-72 levels on a sustainable basis."

9. Meanwhile, the forex reserves were back to $400 billion levels after declining last week. Forex reserves rose by $1.2 billion to $400.5 billion in the week to September 14, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed. In the previous week, forex reserves had fallen by $819.5 million to $399.3 billion.

10. Going forward, analysts will watch developments on the US-China trade front and key meetings of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as the Federal Reserve - the American central bank - for direction.

(With agency inputs)