Indian Rupee Remains Weak

The Indian rupee fell against the dollar in early trade on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 on account of increased demand for the US currency from importers. Local shares also remained more or less choppy despite improved sentiments among its regional peers. The domestic currency opened weaker by 6 paise at Rs 59.72 to a dollar and slipped further to a low of 59.90 so far during the day. In the spot currency market, the Indian unit was last seen trading at 59.87, lower by around 59.66.
Rupee gained marginally on Tuesday on some dollar selling related to arbitrage gains with the offshore non-deliverable forward market, but sentiment remained fragile after a steep foreign sell-off of stocks and debt. Expectations the Reserve Bank of India will step in when the rupee approaches 60 to the dollar have also prevented the rupee from falling too much after it touched an all-time low of 59.9850 on Thursday last week.
Domestic key benchmark indices opened higher on mostly positive Asian stocks only to pare gains later. Asian shares edged higher to reverse a four-day losing streak on Wednesday as investors took comfort from firm U.S. data underscoring an American recovery, and assurances from China's central bank to provide funds to institutions if needed. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Indian shares worth a net Rs 1285.86 crore on Tuesday, 25 June 2013, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. At the time of writing, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 19.01 points or 0.1% to 18,648.16 while the CNX Nifty was up 13.55 points or 0.24% to 5,622.65.
The U.S. dollar was back on the front foot in Asia on Wednesday after the latest batch of U.S. economic data supported the Federal Reserve's recovery view and lifted U.S. Treasury yields.
Source by Commodity Insights