Rupee Closes A Touch Lower, Pressured By Surging Oil

The Indian rupee closed a touch lower on Thursday against the dollar, pressured by surging oil prices, likely to widen the current account deficit and push already high inflation further up.

The escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war has not helped the currency, which has led to persistent foreign capital outflows with Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) on a selling spree in Indian markets. FIIs offloaded shares worth Rs 4,338.94 crores on a net basis on Wednesday, as per exchange data.

The rupee weakened nearly 0.2% to 75.95 per dollar after opening strong at 75.76. But the currency soon started to lose ground, tracking lower Indian bourses and a surge in crude prices above $117. The rupee traded in the range of 75.60 to 75.98 on Thursday.

"USDINR (dollar/rupee) spot closed 21 paise higher at 75.91, highest levels since December 20th. Thanks to surging oil prices and falling stock market, the rupee depreciated against the US dollar. We suspect the RBI has been intervening aggressively, and that may have prevented a bigger drop-in in the rupee," said Anindya Banerjee, Deputy Vice President for Currency Derivatives & Interest Rate Derivatives at Kotak Securities. 

"Over the near term, we expect USDINR to trade with an upward bias within a range of 75.60 and 76.40 on the spot market," he added.

Indian bourses turned red, extending their fall for the second straight session.

The value of foreign portfolio investors (FPI) holdings in domestic equities reached $654 billion in three months which ended in December 2021, a drop of nearly 2 per cent from the preceding quarter, according to a Morningstar report.

That was mainly on the back of a massive sell-off by foreign investors and a correction in the Indian equity markets, especially in the large and mid-cap sectors.

"Markets faltered as oil prices hit highest levels since 2008. The morning relief rally was on hopes of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire but lost steam after that as key benchmarks ended on a negative note," said Prashanth Tape, Vice President for Research at Mehta Equities.

"The street will keenly watch on how RBI tackles with the backdrop of higher oil and commodity prices, and most importantly, growth-supporting fiscal policies," he added.