Rupee slips for third session in a row; oil near $113 a barrel

The rupee depreciated for the third straight session to close 10 paise lower at 76.29 against the dollar on Monday, tracking the strength of the greenback overseas, coupled with foreign fund outflows.

At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened lower at 76.41 against the American currency, and shuttled between a high of 76.20 and a low of 76.43. It settled at 76.29, down 10 paise over its previous close of 76.19. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.20 per cent higher at 100.70.

The rupee also weakened as hawkish Fed officials and dovish ECB continued to push the bond yields higher. The benchmark 10-year bond yield traded down to 7.15 per cent after earlier rising to a high of 7.26 per cent.

Sriram Iyer, senior research analyst at Reliance Securities, said the rupee weighed was weighed down by the rising crude prices and bond yields.

Oil prices rose on Monday as the shut down of Libya’s biggest oil field in an already under-supplied market overshadowed signals that China’s lockdowns are weighing on its economic growth.

Brent crude futures rose above $113 a barrel for the first time since late March. West Texas Intermediate traded around $108. Global markets face further interruptions to oil supplies after demonstrations against Libya’s PM Abdul Hamid Dbeibah shut down Sharara, the country’s biggest oil field.