The Indian rupee gave up its early gains to settle unchanged at 75.78 against the US dollar on Monday as sell-offs in domestic equities and firming crude oil prices weighed on forex market sentiment.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the local currency opened on a strong note at 75.64 and traded between a high of 75.63 and a low of 75.78 against the US dollar in a highly volatile trading session.
The local unit finally settled at 75.78 a dollar.
“Dollar bulls, broadly, remain in control as rupee consolidated near 75.80 and dollar index near 96. Rupee erased most of early morning gains along with domestic equities ahead of retail inflation data,” said Dilip Parmar, Research Analyst, HDFC Securities.
“Forex market players probably need to wait until after the FOMC for further significant gains. Implied volatilities over the week are expected to remain high following the big four — Fed, BoE, ECB and BoJ — monetary policy decisions,” Parmar said.
According to Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities, strong greenback and outflows kept appreciation bias of the local unit limited.
Lack of any major trigger kept the currency in a small trading band this Monday, he added.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.32 per cent up at 96.40.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, advanced 0.31 per cent to USD 75.38 per barrel.
On the domestic equity market front, the BSE Sensex ended 503.25 points or 0.86 per cent lower at 58,283.42, while the broader NSE Nifty declined 143.05 points or 0.82 per cent to 17,368.25.
Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in the capital market on Friday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,092.40 crore, as per exchange data. ( PTI )
