Rupee tanks 35 paise to hit 1-wk low; crude plays spoilsport

The rupee today plunged by 35 paise to end at a fresh one-week low of 65.03 a dollar owing to high demand for the American currency from importers amid political upheaval in Saudi Arabia.
Forex market sentiment endured a near-term crisis as nervousness took centre-stage stemming from a sharp spike in crude prices to the highest level since July 2015 as an anti- corruption purge launched by of Saudi Arabia's crown prince stoked supply disruption fears.
This is the biggest single day fall for the home currency since September 26.
The latest developments in Saudi Arabia sparked a rally for the international oil benchmark to trade above the USD 64 -a-barrel mark -- a two-year high level.

Global crude oil are showing strength and rising faster in the second-half of 2017 than it had previously expected after recovering from its sharp decline last year.
Adding heaviness, the domestic bourses succumbed to a massive profit-taking and wiped out all their early strong gains on renewed worries about the inflation outlook and also renewed geopolitical uncertainty.

The economy is just taking off after recent bad patch and geopolitics or a supply constraint set oil prices zooming, could derail the government's fiscal math, a forex dealer said.
The flagship Sensex tanked 360 points to end at 33,370.76, while Nifty plunged nearly 102 points at 10,350.15.

Meanwhile, the dollar is trading stronger across the board on growing expectations for an upcoming US rate hike even as investors continued to monitor progress on a US tax bill.
Earlier, the rupee resumed higher at 64.65 as compared to Monday's close of 64.68 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (FOREX) market on bouts of dollar selling by exporters.
It gained further ground to touch a high of 64.6050 before retreating sharply in midst of strong dollar buying pressure.
Breaking the key 64-level triggered panic dollar buying from corporates and importers in late afternoon deals, dragging down the local unit to hit an intra-day low of 65.07 before concluding at 65.03, showing a steep loss of 35 paise, or 0.54 per cent.

The Indian unit had depreciated 13 paise yesterday.
The RBI, meanwhile, fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 64.8064 and for the euro at 75.2273.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback's value against a basket of six major currencies, was sharply up at 95 in early trade.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee dropped further against the pound sterling to end at 85.46 from 84.76 per pound and drifted against the Japanese yen to settle at 57 per 100 yens from 56.71 yesterday.
The local currency also fell back against the euro to close at 75.17 from 74.99 earlier.

Elsewhere, the pound sterling drifted sharply against the US dollar after a brief overnight sharp jump on rumours that the UK Prime Minister Theresa May is willing to accept Brexit bill of GBP53 billion as a financial compensation for leaving EU.
The common currency, euro also slipped back after figures showing weak German industrial production dropped by 1.6 per cent over the month in September.
In forward market today, premium for dollar displayed a mixed trend owing to lack of market moving factors.
The benchmark six-month premium payable in April edged up to 137-139 paise from 136.50-138.50 paise, while the far forward October 2018 contract softened to 267.50-269.50 paise from 275.50-277.50 paise.