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Rupee loses seven paise, Rs 43.17/18

The rupee further weakened marginally against the US greenback on an active interbank foreign exchange market today.

Opened nearly steady at 43.12/17, the rupee slipped to Rs 43.22/24 in the morning on heavy dollar buying by corporates and banks due to the prevailing political uncertainty at the Centre.

The continuance of stocks and currency crisis in Asian markets also affected market sentiments in the the forex market, dealers said.

However, the news of a happy end to the seven-year-old row over the implementation of the contentious interim awards of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribual with the Supreme Court approving the scheme framed, changed the market sentiment and the rupee recovered to 43.17/18 at close against 43.10/12 of Friday, on better dollar sales by banks, dealers said.

Except the quick upward movement in the morning, an opposite trend around noon, the rupee remained steady most of the day between 43.15 and 43.17 level, dealers said.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India revised the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 43.21 against Rs 43.08 of the previous day.

The forward premiums also went up on paying pressure due to good import booking in all forward dollars. The third month, sixth month and annualised premiums were quoted higher at 8.35 (7.78), 8.45 (8.15) and 9.20 (9.00) per cent respectively.

Cash/spot business were conducted between 0.75 paise and 1.25 paise premium while cash/tomorrow were done at 0.25-0.50 paise premium. The month-wise premiums in paise were August 9-11 (7-9), September 40-44 (35-38), October 70-74 (65-68), November 100=105 (94-97), December 130-135 (124-127), January 162-167 (155-158), February 193-198 (185-188), March 231-236 (221-224), April 265-270 (255-259) and May 301-396 (292-297).

In the overseas market, the pound sterling weakened a bit against US dollar while deutsche mark and Japanese yen slightly improved.

The rupee marginally strengthened against sterling, dm and yen and quoted at Rs 69.58 (70.02), Rs 24.01 (24.08) and Rs 29.53 (29.72) respectively.

In the domestic money market, the call money interest rates opened higher at 6.50-6.75, later shot up to 8.50-9.00 level at close on heavy fund demand from participants on account of the two holidays after the reporting Friday.

UNI