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Sleepy market keeps rupee rocksteady; Rs 42.49/50

The rupee continued to be stable against the greenback and ended steady at Rs 42.49/50 in a thin trading at the interbank foreign exchange market today.

Opening nearly steady at Rs 42.50, the rupee witnessed hardly any movement and remained around the opening level throughout the day, as the trading continued to be dull and the nominal dollar demand was easily met by corporate selling. The Indian unit ended at Rs 42.49/50 against Rs 42.4950/50 of the previous closing level.

Foward premia which moved up slightly by 2-3 paise in the morning on some paying pressure, later eased and closed nearly steady. Near forward premia remained steady while far-forward moved up a bit by 1-2 paise. Cash/spot ended at 1.00-1.25 paise premium while cash/tomorrow finished at 0.50-0.75 paise premium. The six-month annualised and yearly premia were quoted at 6.94 and 7.44 per cent respectively.

The month-wise premia in paise were: February 15-17, March 39-41, April 66-68, May 89-91, June 114-117, July 141-144, August 169-172, September 196-200, October 223-227, November 252-256, December 282-286 and January 310-315.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India has maintained the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 42.50 today.

In the cross currency, rupee remained nearly steady against pound sterling. It declined against Japanese yen and strengthened against euro. Sterling ended at Rs 69.80 (69.74), euro at Rs 48.03 (48.34) and yen at Rs 37.54 (36.81).

In the domestic money market, the call rates ended marginally higher at 9.00-9.20 per cent on good demand for funds from participants.

UNI

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