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Rupee steady, forward premia swing in a tight money market; Rs 43.45 vs $

• Rs 43.45 vs $
• Rs 46.20 vs euro
• Rs 69.84 vs pound
• Rs 37.47 vs yen (100)

The Indian rupee ended steady while forward premia rose sharply due to a tight money market at the interbank foreign exchange market today.

The rupee opened at Rs 43.4850/50 to the US dollar, which was the low of the day, moved upto a high of Rs 43.44/45 level as State Bank of India and other nationailised banks sold the greenback at the opening higher levels. The Indian unit closed at Rs 43.45/47, nearly unchanged from the previous close of 43.4550/4650.

Forward premia witnessed hectic movements and shot up sharply around noon as the interbank call rates touched the seven-month high of 25 per cent on heavy covering by banks ahead of the reporting Friday coupled with absence of main lenders.

However, later, the premia eased from the higher level, and closed marginally higher as the call rates moved down to 15-20 per cent at close.

Dealers said SBI and other banks were paying heavily on forwards due to the higher call rates. The sixth-month and yearly annualised premia closed a bit higher at 5.41 and 5.53 per cent respectively as against 5.38 and 5.49 per cent of the previous day.

Cash/spot and cash/tomorrow premia ended higher at 4.00-4.50 paise each. The month-wise premia in paise were: August 12-14, September 29-31, October 47-49, November 66-69, December 84-87, January 108-111, February 129-132, March 149-152, April 168-171, May 188-191, June 208-221 and July 228-231.

The Reserve Bank of India fixed the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 43.47 as against Rs 43.49 of the previous day.

In the cross currency, the rupee strengthened against pound sterling, euro and Japanese yen. Sterling ended at Rs 69.84 (70.04), euro at Rs 46.20 (46.45) and yen at Rs 37.47 (37.83).

UNI

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