Rupee Vs Dollar Today: The rupee settled at 74.55 against the dollar
The rupee declined 24 paise against the US dollar on Tuesday, July 6, to settle at 74.55 (provisional) amid stronger American currency and rising crude oil prices – both of which weighed on investor sentiment. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the domestic unit opened at 74.28 against the dollar and hovered in the range of 74.25 to 74.62 in the day. In an early trade session, the local unit inched higher by six paise to 74.25 against the greenback. On Monday, July 5, the local unit had settled at 74.31 against the American currency.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.18 per cent to 92.38.
”In past session, rupee traded on a stable to stronger note tracking higher domestic equities despite a sharp fall in service activity and surging oil prices. Activity in the services industry fell sharply in June showing the lowest PMI reading since July 2020 amid lockdown restrictions. At the same time, elevated oil prices to a two-and-a-half-year high are adding to concerns after OPEC+ ministers abandoned the talks creating fear for high inflationary pressure that could hurt the rupee,” said Mr Amit Pabari, MD CR Forex.
The dollar-rupee pair has managed to break 74.40 crucial support yesterday. With this support broken, technically the pair is most likely to move towards support of 73.80 levels in the near term. However, any buying pressure could lead to a technical bounce back cum selling opportunity near 74.50-74.70 levels,” he added.
”The USD/INR pair started the week at 74.55, down 22 paise/USD from the previous day. The currency pair hit a high of 74.8650 on Friday, but a shift in market opinion of Fed tapering has put a temporary halt to the upside rise, with a drop forecast this week to test the support at 74.30….Technically, the USDINR July opened on a negative note with a considerable gap down and that too in the support zone of 74.80-74.75,” said Kshitij Purohit, Lead International & Commodities at CapitalVia Global Research Limited.
”As soon as prices breached this support zone, prices took a corrective pullback and tested resistance in the above-mentioned support zone, indicating that one could expect a further downfall from this zone….On the downside, 74.40-74.38 might be seen acting as a major support zone, and if this too gets breached, a further fall till 74.20-74.15 may be expected,” he added.
On the domestic equity market front, the BSE Sensex ended 18.82 points or 0.04 per cent lower at 52,861.18, while the broader NSE Nifty fell 16.10 points or 0.1 per cent to 15,818.25.
”Key benchmark indices witnessed volatile trading sessions near 15900 / 53100 resistance level. Today, post muted opening the index quickly surpassed 15850/52900 resistance level but once again it failed to sustain above 15900/53100 and due to constant profit booking at higher level, it erased all intraday gains in the second half of the day and after a highly volatile trading session finally closed at 15818/52861,” said Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities
According to exchange data, the foreign institutional investors were net sellers in the capital market on July 5 as they offloaded shares worth Rs 338.43 crore. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, advanced 0.19 per cent to $ 77.31 per barrel.
