Rupee advances 3 paise to 66.82 against US dollar

In a highly volatile trade, the rupee maintained its edge against the American currency for the second day today and appreciated by a modest 3 paise to close at 66.82.
Trading has been thin and confined to extremely narrow range in the absence of any market moving factors even as resurgent dollar remained in spotlight on the currency market.
Sluggish domestic equities and persistent capital outflows largely pressurised the Indian unit, a forex dealer said.
The home currency opened substantially lower at 66.93 from Monday's closing level of 66.85 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market as sustained dollar demand from importers fairly weighed on trade.

However, some dollar selling by corporates and bank predominantly helped the rupee to recover towards the tail-end trade to settle at 66.82, revealing a gain of 3 paise, or 0.04 per cent.
In worldwide trade, the American currency remained fairly strong against all major and emerging market currencies on expectations of US interest rate hike by year-end in the face of positive comments from a Federal Reserve official and solid US manufacturing activity overnight.

The firmer greenback is also contributing to China's renminbi hitting a fresh multi-year low.
Meanwhile, the euro hovered near its weakest in almost eight months.
The dollar index, which measures its broader strength against a basket of currencies, was up 0.14 per cent at 98.78.

The RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.8777 and euro at 72.7897.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee rebounded modestly against the pound sterling to finish at 81.73 from 81.86 and regained against euro to end at 72.72 as compared to 72.87 yesterday.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) remained net sellers
for the second straight day and sold shares worth a net Rs 325.13 crore, as per exchanges data.
Meanwhile, domestic bourses succumbed fresh bout of profit-taking mainly in Tata group stocks after Cyrus Mistry was sacked yesterday as Chairman of India's largest conglomerate Tata Group.
The flagship BSE Sensex fell over 88 points to close at 28,091.42, while broader Nifty moved down 17.65 points to 8,691.30.

In the forward market, premium for dollar continued trade weak on sustained receiving by exporters.
The benchmark six-month premium for March softened to 150.5-152.5 paise from 151.75-152.50 paise and the forward- September 2017 contract also edged down to 326-328 paise from 327.75-328.75 paise yesterday.
Crude prices regained some energy ahead of the release of US crude inventory data, which in recent weeks has provided bullish surprises amid bullish comments from OPEC members on production output cut.