Mumbai: The rupee suffered a major blow and endured a sharp reversal in fortunes against the US currency on renewed worries over rising global crude prices and capital outflows. Breaking an extreme bullish uptrend, the home currency retreated sharply to end at a fresh one-week low of 67.50, capping a spectacular two-week upsurge.
It had appreciated by a whopping 94 paise or 1.38 per cent in the recent pull back rally. Sustained demand for the greenback from state-run banks, likely on behalf of oil importers and some foreign portfolio investors predominantly weighed on the rupee front.
The Indian unit touched a low of 67.79 before recouping some of its losses on suspected market intervention by the RBI. It was a highly volatile week for the forex market and witnessed wild swings following a sudden revival of the elasticity pessimism on hardening worries over fiscal slippage and higher inflation pressure after international crude oil prices hit a new three-year high.
The selling bias appears to have re-emerged at the end of the week due to macro-economic concerns, a forex dealer said. Global crude prices were once again on an upward spiral leading to renewed fears over widening fiscal deficit and rising inflationary pressure.
Earlier, the forex market sentiment was buoyed by the Reserve Bank retaining growth forecast for the current fiscal at 7.4 per cent on hopes of further boost to investments and higher consumption.
The local unit touched a fresh one-month high of 66.84 before retreating sharply towards weekend. In a carefully scripted move, the Reserve Bank for the first time in four-and-a-half-years raised key interest rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent - highlighting concerns over inflationary pressures to the domestic economy arising from a steep spike in global crude prices and evolving macroeconomic situation.
Expectations of more interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and the prospect that the European Central Bank will soon signal a winding-down of its massive monetary stimulus also contributed to high amount of volatility during the week.
The local currency also remained under severe volatile against pound sterling, euro and Japanse Yen. Indian bond markets witnessed intense selling pressure after the RBI hiked the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent, sending the benchmark yield surging to 7.95 per cent, to a three-year high. It brifly touched 8 per cent.
Furthermore, the RBIs decision to increase the LCR carve-out from SLR might lead to a reduced bond buying by banks in a market that is already facing issues on the demand-supply side.
On the energy front, global crude prices fell modestly after JP Morgan cut its crude price forecast and also impacted by concerns about surging U.S. output and falling demand in China. JP Morgan cut its 2018 crude forecast for WTI by USD3 to USD62.20 a barrel, traders said.
Brent crude futures, an international benchmark were down 87 cents, or 1.1 percent, at USD 76.45 per barrel, on pace for a slight weekly increase.
Meanwhile, foreign funds and investors pulled out a massive Rs 29,714 crore from the capital markets in May, making it the biggest outflow in 18 months, primarily due to a surge in global crude prices.
This comes following an outflow of Rs 15,561 crore from the capital markets (equity and debt) in April. Country's forex reserves declined by USD 593.7 million to USD 412.23 billion for the week ended Jun 1 on a dip in the gold assets, Reserve Bank said.
The rupee opened higher at 66.96 against last Friday's close of 67.06 at the inter-bank foreign exchange (forex) market following aggressive dollar selling by banks and exporters.
It later strengthened to 66.84 before staging a sharp reversal. Facing intense pressure from all sides, the home unit drifted sharply to a low of 67.79 befoer ending the at 67.50, revealing a steep loss of 44 paise, or 0.66 per cent.
The RBI, meanwhile, fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 67.5228 and for the euro at 79.5824. The dollar index, which measures the greenback's value against a basket of six major currencies ended at 93.55.
In cross-currency trade, the rupee drifted further against the pound sterling to end at 90.40 per pound from last weekend's level of 89.34 and slumped against the euro to close at 79.21 as compared to 78.41.
The home unit also dropped against the Japanse yen to settle at 61.75 per 100 yens from 61.35 earlier. In the forward market, premium for dollar edged higher owing to mild paying pressure from corporates.
The benchmark six-month forward dollar premium payable for September moved up to 109.50-111.50 paise from 112-114 paise and the far-forward contract maturing in February 2019 inched up to 252-254 paise from 251-253 paise last Friday.
