Mumbai, July 4 (PTI): The Indian rupee on Thursday furthered its gains by another 39 paise to 68.50 a US dollar, tracking firmer emerging market currencies, lower crude oil prices, even as participants keenly awaited the Union Budget to be unveiled on Friday.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 68.86 per dollar and advanced to a high of 68.49 during the day. It finally settled at 68.50, up 39 paise against its previous close of 68.89.
Meanwhile, the Economic Survey 2019 stressed the need to give a huge boost to spending and reforms to accelerate higher rate of expansion to double the economy’s size to USD 5 trillion by 2024-25.
“Rupee gain was followed by stronger emerging market currencies. Lower crude oil prices and stronger domestic equity markets supported rupee in Thursday’s trade,” said V K Sharma, Head PCG and Capital Markets Strategy, HDFC Securities.
Meanwhile, the 10-year government bond yield was at 6.75 per cent on Thursday.
The Financial Benchmark India Private Ltd (FBIL) set the reference rate for the rupee/dollar at 68.8776 and for rupee/euro at 77.7256. The reference rate for rupee/British pound was fixed at 86.6076 and for rupee/100 Japanese yen at 64.00.
