Rupee Strengthens By 1% On RBI Intervention, Sensex, Nifty Too End Higher
On Tuesday, the rupee sank to a fresh record low, breaching the 91-a-dollar mark for the first time on persistent outflows by foreign portfolio investors and uncertainty over the US-India trade deal: Reports
MUMBAI: The Indian rupee posted its strongest single-day gain in over three years, appreciating by one rupee in the final minutes of Friday’s trading session to hit intraday high of 89.24, largely supported by active intervention from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). According to traders, the RBI sold almost $2-3 billion through nationalized banks to stem the rupee’s steady depreciation and curb speculative bets.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the spot rupee opened at 90.13 level against the dollar and made a high of 89.95 before dollar buying by oil companies and other importers took it lower to 90.30. However, in the last few minutes of the market hour, the RBI intervened aggressively selling dollars, helping the rupee post its single day gain in over three years to hit a high of 89.2450 before
finally closing at 89.27, up 0.97 paise, the highest since November 27, 2025.
On Tuesday, the rupee sank to a fresh record low, breaching the 91-a-dollar mark for the first time on persistent outflows by foreign portfolio investors and uncertainty over the US-India trade deal.
Ritesh Bhansali, deputy chief executive officer at Mecklai Financial said, “It will be interesting to see whether the RBI continues with its heavy intervention on Monday as well. More importantly, the
rupee’s future direction will also depend on how market participants react to the RBI’s heavy intervention over the last three sessions. We expect the rupee to stay volatile in a range of 88.50-90.30.”
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was last up 0.2 per cent at 98.66 while Asian currencies were mostly lower, led by the over one per cent slump in the Japanese yen after the Bank of Japan raised rates to 30 year high. Foreign Institutional Investors' outflows stand at $ 10145 billion in the calendar year 2025 YTD with $ 2594 of outflows in
December alone so far.
Indian equity benchmarks closed Friday’s trade on a higher note, snapping a four-day losing streak. The Nifty 50 ended the day 150 points or 0.58 per cent higher at 25,966, while the BSE Sensex rose
448 points or 0.53 per cent to end at 84,929 on increased hopes of further rate easing by the Federal Reserve as US CPI undershot estimates.
The Rupee is currently the worst-performing Asian currency, with 6 percent depreciation witnessed in 2025 so far. The data also indicates that the recent fall is the quickest (in terms of number of days) of rupee, scaled to 5 per USD. In less than a year the rupee has slid from 85 to 90 per dollar.
The RBI has intervened around $18 billion in the forex market during June-Sept, and by another ~$10 billion in Oct’25. So, the total amount stands at around $30 billion, while forex reserves declined by $15 billion during the same period said SBI Research report.
India's forex reserves jumped by $1.689 billion to $688.949 billion during the week ended December 12, RBI data showed. In the previous reporting week, the overall reserves increased by $1.033 billion to $687.26 billion.
