Rupee stronger in trade on Rajan's comments

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee and bonds opened stronger on Friday following comments from Chief Economic Adviser Raghuram Rajan, but traders will now await the auction of 150 billion rupees worth of bonds for further direction.

Rajan said all options were being considered to fund the country's record-high current account deficit. He said policy measures were geared to stabilise a weak rupee in a way that only does "minimal damage" to growth.

Traders said gains in the euro and other Asian currencies also helped the rupee with sentiment having changed after the recent central bank measures.

At 9:06 a.m., the partially convertible rupee was trading at 58.85/86 per dollar compared to its Thursday's close of 59.11/12.

The benchmark 10-year bond yield was down 6 basis points at 8.13 percent. (Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Sunil Nair)