Rupee gains ground to hit 1-wk high amid 'feel good' factors

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Politics, Plan and Policy, Currency

Rupee gains ground to hit 1-wk high amid 'feel good' factors

Stretching its strong recovery momentum for the third straight day - the rupee gained further ground to end higher by 4 paise at 64.44 against the American currency on sustained dollar selling by exporters.
This is the highest closing level for the home currency in over one-week.
Despite bullish dollar overseas sentiment ahead of key US macro data release, the home unit showed abundant strength largely helped by robust capital inflows into equity and debt markets.
However, stray dollar demand from importers and some caution by currency traders ahead of RBI's monetary policy meet next week, restricted the rupee's upmove.
Meanwhile, Finance minister Arun Jaitley said an annual seven-eight per cent growth is fairly reasonable level of growth and very good by global standard and reasonable by Indian standard,dismissing suggestions that it was on account of demonetisation.
India's growth rate slipped to 6.1 per cent in the January-March quarter and 7.1 per cent, the lowest in the three years, during 2016-17.
Reform measures undertaken by India will broaden its tax base and help government cut down on debt, but high stressed assets in the banking sector pose contingent liability risks, Moody's said today.
Meanwhile, domestic bourses made a stellar rebound and conquered fresh historic highs as value buying re-emerged in pharma, realty, onsumer durables, auto and power shares after two-day consolidation phase.
The flagship sensex jumped about 136 points to end at a new closing peak of 31,273.29 and Nifty rose over 37 points to 9,653.50.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 517.31 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.
In the meantime, the greenback rebounded to trade near one-week high against major world rivals on encouraging data flow amid expectations for Nonfarm payrolls, which are due for release later today.
The local unit opened substantially higher at 64.35 from Thursday's close of 64.48 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) Market.
It largely moved in a tight range of 64.32 and 64.51 most part of the day owing to alternate bouts of demand and supply transactions
of dollars before settling at 64.44, revealing a gain of 4 paise, 0.06 per cent.
The rupee has appreciated by a whopping 22 paise in last three sessions.
For the week, however it ended virtually steady.
The RBI, meanwhile, fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 64.4208 and for the euro at 72.2673.
The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. Currency against a basket of six major rivals, was marginally up at 97.22.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee bounced back against the British Pound to settle at 82.85 from 82.89 per pound and firmed up further against the Euro to end at 72.26 as compared to 72.37 yesterday.
The home unit also rose sharply against the Japanese Yen to finish at 57.78 per 100 yens from 58.02 earlier.