Rupee closes 7 paise weaker against US dollar at 66.52

Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Thursday closed weaker against the US dollar, after local equity market fell over 460 points.

The home currency closed at 66.52, down 0.1% from its previous close of 66.45. The rupee opened at 66.38 a dollar and touched a high and a low of 66.38 and 66.55, respectively in intraday trade.

India’s benchmark Sensex index fell 1.77%, or 461.02 points to close at 25,603.10. So far this year, Sensex is down 2%.

Most Asian currencies closed higher against the US dollar. Japanese yen was up 3.2%, South Korean won 0.9%, Malaysian ringgit 0.46%, China offshore spot 0.33%, China renminbi 0.32%, Singapore dollar 0.28%, Thai baht 0.21%, Taiwan dollar 0.13%, Indonesian rupiah 0.09%. However, Philippines peso was down 0.17%.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) maintained status quo on interest rates. The Japanese central bank kept its target for expanding the monetary base and didn’t boost its budget for buying exchange-traded funds. More than half the economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted more stimulus at Thursday’s meeting, a Bloomberg report said.

The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but signalled confidence in the US economic outlook, leaving the door open to a hike in June.

The US central bank’s policy-setting committee said the jobs market had improved further despite a recent economic slowdown and that it was keeping a close eye on inflation, Reuters reported.

India’s 10-year bond yield closed at 7.441%, as compared with its Wednesday’s close of 7.461%.

So far this year, the rupee has gained 0.55%, while foreign institutional investors has bought $1.78 billion from the local equity market and sold $372.01 million in debt markets.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 93.877, down 0.54% from its previous close of 94.387.