Indian rupee Vs US dollar: Rupee hits 66-mark as RBI turns hawkish

Rupee Vs dollar: Rupee clocked over 66-mark against US benchmark dollar index in the interbank forex market this week. On Friday, the domestic unit settled at a 13-month low of 66.12 against the US currency, hit by a resurgent dollar, firming crude prices and a more hawkish tone of the Reserve Bank. Not only this, due to RBI's surprised hawkish tone kept overall sentiment bearish, the rupee on it's fifth day of trading took a hit of 32 paise to close at more than one-year low against US dollar. This level was last seen in March 2017, where the domestic unit closed at 66.60-level against dollar.  

"Indian rupee fell for a fifth session as RBI minutes revealed that RBI's tone is more hawkish than what markets had previously gauged. FII selling and firm oil adds to pressure on rupee, while US dollar is also not expected to yield much ahead of May's FOMC meet," Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said in PTI report. 

Overall forex mood turned fragile following a probability of rate hike as early as June despite easing inflation, a currency dealer said in the report. 

In April, the rupee has dropped by 1% and by 3.52% so far this year. 

According to the RBI data, India's foreign exchange reserves rose to a life-time high of $424.864 billion at the first week of April, aided by increase in foreign currency assets. 
Meanwhile, on Friday, the benchmark Sensex index finished at 34,415.58 down by 11.71 points or 0.03%, while Nifty 50 closed gradually below 1.25 points or 0.01% at 10,564.05.