Indian rupee jumps to 1-month high against US dollar at 66.62

Mumbai: The rupee on Tuesday recovered 12 paise to close at one-month high of 66.62 per US dollar following heavy dollar unwinding by banks and exporters amid capital inflows.

Expectations of robust capital inflows on the back of fading political uncertainty along with bullish domestic stock markets largely supported the rupee momentum, a forex dealer said.

A weak dollar in overseas markets also supported the rupee rally with trade largely driven by cautious expectations.

Meanwhile, extending the gains for the second session in a row, domestic stock markets ended on a firm note enthused by revived global sentiments following improved prospects of Hillary Clinton's win in today's US election.

The rupee opened on a mildly positive note at 66.72 from Monday's closing level of of 66.74 at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange (forex) market on dollar sale by exporters.

The home currency kept ascending to hit an intra-day high of 66.6125 before closing at one-month high of 66.62, showing a gain of 12 paise, or 0.18 percent. This is the highest closing level since October 10, 2016, when the rupee had finished at 66.53.

On the global front, the dollar Index, which measures its broader strength against a basket of currencies, was up 0.04 percent at 97.82 in the afternoon trade.

The RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.7073 and euro at 73.6515.

In cross-currency trades, the rupee strengthened further against the pound sterling to finish at 82.73 from 82.92 and edged higher against the euro to end at 73.61 as compared to 73.85 yesterday.

It also made further ground against the Japanese yen to settle at 63.69 from 63.92 per 100 yens earlier.

On the domestic equity front, the benchmark BSE Sensex climbed over 132 points to close at 27,591.14, while broder Nifty rose 46.50 pts to 8,543.55.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net buyers after their recent selling spree and bought shares worth a net Rs 311.18 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.

In the forward market, premium for dollar displayed a easy to firm trend owing to lack of market moving factors.

The benchmark six-month premium for April quoted at 171.25-173.25 paise as against 171.75-172.75 paise, which the forward- October 2017 contract moved up to 347-349 paise from 347-347.75 paise previously.

Crude prices traded little changed after an overnight bounce on the back of subdued Chinese oil imports data, down 12.9 percent from the previous month and one of the lowest volume this year on a daily basis.

Brent crude was up 13 cents at USD 46.28 per barrel in early trade.