The Indian rupee gained nearly 20 paise against the US dollar on Tuesday as the domestic equities rebounded sharply with Sensex advancing over 300 points today. The rupee surged as much as 19 paise to a day’s high of 64.93 against the US dollar at the interbank foreign exchange market on Tuesday. The S&P BSE Sensex opened higher at 34,047.43, up by 300 points in the morning deals today with blue-chip stocks of companies such as Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, HDFC, Dr Reddy’s, Bharti Airtel, and Tata Motors surging the most. The domestic currency started the day at 64.96, up by 16 paise vs the US dollar in the early trades.
The Reserve Bank of India had fixed a reference rate of 65.0530 against the US dollar on Monday. Earlier yesterday, the rupee added 5 paise to end at 65.12 apiece US dollar. Meanwhile, the US dollar edged higher versus the yen on Tuesday, supported by receding fears about a trade war stemming from US President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, Reuters said in a report. The US dollar had tumbled to 16-month lows against the safe-haven Japanese yen late last week as concerns about a trade war gripped markets after Trump announced his plan for steel and aluminium tariffs, Reuters added. The US dollar edged up 0.1% to 106.30 per Japanese yen.
Crude oil prices surged on Tuesday for a third straight day, underpinned by robust demand forecasts and as ministers from OPEC touted the strength of its agreement with global producers to cut output in order to bolster the market, Reuters reported. Among the oil markets, the WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude was trading up 0.16% at 62.67 per barrel while the Brent crude was trading 0.12% higher at 65.62.
Earlier last week, India’s GDP topped a five-quarter high of 7.2% in the October-December period of the financial year 2017-2018. At the time of writing, the benchmark Sensex was trading up 158.02 points or 0.48% at 33,907.85. Among the ‘A’ group shares of BSE, stocks of Bombay Dyeing, Vakrangee, PC Jeweller, BF Utilities and IDBI Bank surged 3-6% while the stocks of Balrampur Chini, BEML, Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar, KPR Mill and Videocon Industries lost 2-4% today.
Source: financialexpress.com