Rupee recovers from five months low on Thursday; RBI’s intervention aids

   

     Indian rupee, recovered from five months low level hit in previous trading session on Thursday on account of RBI’s intervention, which was speculated to have sold dollars via state-run banks starting at around 61.50 levels to prevent the rupee from slipping further. However, massive losses of local equities, weighing on the sentiment, limited further uptrend of Indian currency. Nevertheless, overall sentiment remained to be positive after the Cabinet cleared the long-delayed proposal for raising FDI limit in defence to 49% and fully opened up the railway infrastructure segment, like high-speed trains, for foreign investment. Notably, the gains of Indian currency came despite weakness in most emerging Asian currencies as growing tensions over Ukraine and surprisingly weak Australian job data hurt risk appetite. Globally, euro held steady above a nine-month low on Thursday ahead of a policy review by the European Central Bank, while the Aussie dollar tumbled after surprisingly weak Australian jobs data.
     Finally, the rupee ended at 61.23, stronger by 27 paise from its previous close of 61.50 on Wednesday. The currency touched a high and low of 61.54 and 61.21 respectively.  The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 61.41 and for Euro stood at 82.16 on August 07, 2014. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 60.04, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 103.4245. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.