Rupee snaps 2-day losing streak, up 9 paise to 66.93

After two days of losses, the rupee today recovered by 9 paise to end at 66.93 on fresh selling of dollars by banks and exporters amid weakness in American currency in the overseas market.
Persistent foreign capital inflows also boosted the rupee value against the dollar, a forex dealer said.
The rupee opened higher at 66.97 per dollar as against the yesterday's closing level of 67.02 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (FOREX) market.
Later, it gained further on good bouts of dollar selling from banks to 66.9050 before ending at 66.93 per dollar, showing a gain of 9 paise or 0.13 per cent.

The domestic currency had dropped by 17 paise or 0.25 per cent in previous two trading days.
The local currency moved in a range of 66.9050 per dollar and 66.98 during the day.

The dollar index was trading down by 0.16 per cent against a basket of six currencies in the late afternoon trade.
In the overseas market, the dollar softened against its rival currencies in the late afternoon trade as investors await Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen's semiannual congressional testimony on interest-rate policy.
The US dollar index, which measures the greenback's
strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was trading lower at 101.48.

In cross-currency trade, the rupee also jumped against the British Pound to finish at 79.84 from 80.95 and hardened further against the Japanese Yen to end at 57.26 per 100 yens compared to 57.73 earlier.
The home currency recovered against the euro to conclude at 69.99 from 70.63 last weekend.
Meanwhile, the country's foreign exchange reserves jumped by USD 1.218 billion to USD 364.01 billion in the week ended March 3.
In the previous week, the reserves had shot up by USD 63.7 million to USD 362.79 billion.
In the forward market, premium for dollar recovered in view of paying pressure from corporates.

The benchmark six-month premium for August edged up to 147-149.50 paise from 146-148 paise and the far-forward February 2018 contract also moved up to 300-304 paise from 298-300 paise.