Rupee gains 30 paise to 68.43 in late morning trade

The rupee strengthened further from early gains by 30 paise to 68.43 against the American currency in late morning deals in sustained bouts of dollar selling from banks and exporters amid higher domestic equites.
The rupee opened a tad higher at 68.72 per dollar as against yesterday's closing of 68.73 at the Interank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market.
Later, the volatile rupee hovered between 68.80 and 68.30 before quoting at 68.43 at 1030 hrs on persistent selling of dollar by banks.
The dollar Index was trading lower by 0.05 per cent at 101.64 against a basket of six currencies.
Overseas, the US dollar was largely mixed against basket of currencies in early Asian trade, though it rose to an 8-month high against the yen as US bond yields resumed their rise in Asia after the Thanksgiving break shut markets in the United States.

In the forward market, premium for dollar rose sharply

due to fresh paying pressure from corporates.
The benchmark six-month premium for April rose to 99-103 paise from 85.5-89 paise and the far-forward October 2017 contract also moved up to 248-252 paise from 230-233 previously.
On the domestic equity front, the Sensex shot up 456.17 points to end at 26,316.34 while the broader Nifty jumped 148.80 points to 8,114.30.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 2,010.15 crore yesterday.
In global trade, crude prices fell sharply over 1 per cent on Friday, mainly dragged down by a strong dollar and the Saudi-led plan to agree on output cut from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers next week.