Rupee ends steady at 67.95 against dollar

The rupee washed out its initial gains against the US currency and ended steady at 67.95 a dollar on fag-end dollar demand from banks and importers in view of uncertainty in the currency market.
The rupee opened sharply higher 67.77 a dollar against yesterday's closing level of 67.95 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) and moved up further to 67.71 a dollar on initial selling of dollars by banks and exporters due to weakness of dollar in the overseas market.
However, it washed out initial gains and dropped to 67.96 on fag-end dollar demand from banks and importers before ending at 67.95 per dollar, showing no change from last close.

The domestic unit hovered in a range of 67.71 and 67.96 during the day.
The dollar index was trading lower by 0.45 per cent against a basket of six currencies in the late afternoon trade.
The Reserve Bank fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 67.8867 and for the Euro at 75.0623.

In cross-currency trades, the rupee dropped against the pound sterling to finish at 90.76 from 89.76 yesterday and also fell against the euro to settle at 75.32 from 74.78.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) remained net sellers
in equities and sold shares worth a net Rs 469.93 crore yesterday, as per provisional data from stock exchanges.

Meanwhile, domestic bourses continued their recovery momentum on the back of good buying in frontline heavy weights alongside some short-covering in Tata group stocks which were hammered recently reacting to Cyrus Mistry's sudden ouster as Chairman.
The flagship BSE index firmed up 25.61 points to end at 27,941.51, while broder Nifty rose 22.75 points at 8,638.
In the forward market, premium for dollar showed an easy trend due to lack of market moving factors.
The benchmark six-month premium for March inched up to 143-145 paise as compared to 142-144 paise, while the forward- September 2017 contract edged lower to 318-319 paise from 318-320 paise yesterday.

Crude prices fell back after brief recovery to trade marginally lower as doubts linger about whether OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers will be able to agree on an output cut big enough to curb a global glut.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will kick off a two-day meeting of experts on Friday.