Rupee's Brutal Plunge Persists; Falls To New Record Low Of 79.45 A Dollar

The rupee's brutal plunge continued on Monday, with the currency ending at another new all-time low of nearly 79.45 per dollar, closing in fast to the next key-psychological weak level of the 80-to-a-dollar rate as investors eye domestic and US inflation data later in the week.

PTI reported that the rupee dropped 19 paise to close at a record low of 79.45 against the US dollar, after settlements. At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened weak at 79.30 against the greenback and witnessed an intra-day high of 79.24 and a low of 79.49.

After hitting a series of record lows in recent months, the rupee fell to another new intra-day lifetime weak level of 79.4388 per dollar and closed out Monday at its lifetime low of near 79.44 against the greenback, according to Bloomberg.  

That free fall in the rupee comes despite a slew of measures from the Reserve Bank of India to increase forex inflows and, in turn, boost the domestic currency in the face of a rampant dollar on the rise in flight-to-safety bets, driven by global recession fears and surging inflation.

With that weak start to the week, the rupee is now just a hop, skip and jump away from another key psychological level of 80 per dollar, a dramatic collapse from about 74 it was changing hands at the beginning of the year.

The dollar's appeal has driven that brutal plunge in the currency to foreign investors, who have stampeded into US assets at the cost of almost every other currency-denominated asset.

With the foreign investors' exodus from risk assets, such as Indian equities and currency, the country's import cover or forex reserves fell by $5.009 billion to $588.314 in the week ending July 1, its lowest since April last year.

The fall in the country's import war chest has also been swift and sharp, down over $40 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

To explain the magnitude of that fall, it would take the country over two years to build that amount of reserves in a normal economic environment.

The dollar's surge has been rampant, with the greenback climbing to a 24-year high on the yen as global growth fears helped the safe-haven US currency more broadly.

With the biggest single pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany closed for planned annual maintenance for ten days, the dollar flirted with euro parity. Investors worried that the shutdown might be extended due to the war in Ukraine, restricting European gas supply further and tipping the struggling eurozone economy into recession.