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Rupee steady

The Indian rupee closed at Rs 39.15-17 as against its previous close of 39.16-18, after touching an intraday low of Rs 39.24-27 on the interbank foreign exchange market in Bombay today.

The market opened at Rs 39.16-19 per US dollar, and due to overnight buying support from the State Bank of India and month-end corporate sector demand for the dollars, it went up to Rs 39.24-27 during intraday trading before closing at Rs 39.15-17, leading forex dealers said.

Attendance in the market was thin as most of the dealers were in a year-end and holiday mood, except for SBI's overnight covering and shortcovering by corporate sectors, a dealer said.

Despite the Reserve Bank of India intervention in the forward dollar for February, March, April, the forward premiums went up by 15 to paise, dealers said.

Being the holiday season in the overseas market which saw a thin presence of dealers, slack trading was witnessed in the merchant sections.

Easy trend was observed in the cross currency market. The pound sterling opened at Rs 65.65 and closed lower at Rs 64.40, Deutsche mark opened at Rs 22.17 and finished at Rs 22.09 while the Japanese yen opened at Rs 30.15 (per 100) and came down to Rs 30.12 at close, a dealer said.

In the swaps section, 15 to 20 paise movement was seen during the day. Cash to spot dollar was quoted at 1.75-2 paise premium, spot/Jan traded at 37-39 paise premium, spot/Feb was quoted at 71-73 paise premium and spot/June was traded between 190 and 194 paise premium.

Meanwhile, the RBI has fixed the reference rate for US dollar at Rs 39.24 as against Rs 39.11 on the last working day.

UNI