Weekly Review: Rupee shrugs off global implied volatility; ends almost flat

New Delhi: The rupee largely shrugged off global implied volatility and ended almost flat at 64.15 against the dollar in lethargic trade at the forex market during the holiday shortened week.

Unable to find a certain directional strength, the home currency was mainly confined to a narrow range-bound trade amid weaker dollar overseas undertone.

Though, negative headlines kept hitting currency sentiment as investors reacted to US political turmoil and terror attack in Spain.

But, downward potential was well-limited by the absence of strong dollar demand from corporates and importers.

Sustained and continuing inflow of capital into equities and a recovery in domestic equities also cushioned the fall.

Fading geopolitical tension following some truce stand-off between the US and North Korea predominantly helped the local unit to recoup some lost ground.

Recovering from a massive fall, the local unit opened on a higher note at 64.02 from last weekend close of 64.13 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market (forex) on fresh bouts of dollar unwinding by exporters and banks.

Later, it breached the key psychological 64-mark to hit a high of 63.93 briefly before falling back to establish a fresh 3-week low of 64.33.

However, overcoming the mid-week sudden wobble, rupee staged a smart rebound towards the fag-end trade to end at 64.15, showing a nominal loss of 2 paise, or 0.03 percent.

Stretching its fall for the second-straight week, the home currency has depreciated by a whopping 57 paise.

In the meantime, country's foreign exchange reserves rose by USD 163.8 million to touch a new life time high of USD 393.612 billion in the week ended on August 11, the Reserve Bank data showed.

Forex market was shut on August 15 and 17 on account of Independence Day and Parsi New Year, respectively.

With PTI Inputs