Rupee closes steady at 39.70/71 per USD

Mumbai, Sep 27 (UNI) The Rupee today closed steady at 39.70/71 per US Dollar in mixed trading at the interbank foreign exchange market.

The local currency, which was seen rising for last three straight sessions, closed unchanged as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made heavy Dollar purchases to halt the Rupee's rise, dealers said.

The Rupee made a firm start at 39.66/68 per dollar as compared to the previous close of 39.70/71 per dollar, during the early trade and later traded between a wide range of 39.63-90 per dollar before the Apex Bank's reported intervention.

On Wednesday, the local unit touched a new nine year high of 39.62 per dollar, during the intra-day trade due to heavy inflows.

Rupee has shown a tendency to gain further but due to reported intervention by the RBI, it was capped and supposed to trade in range bound levels in further sessions, dealers opined.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank today fixed the reference rate at Rs 39.75 per US Dollar. The reference rate was down by five paise as compared to previous day's rate of Rs 39.70 per USD.

In the forwards section, sixth month forward premia against U S Dollar ended slightly lower at 1.05 (1.09) per cent while, the one-year annualised premia ended at 1.23 (1.25) per cent.

In the cross currencies, the Rupee traded weaker against major currencies of the world. It ended weak against Euro at56.16/17 (56.04/05) per unit, closed much weaker against pound sterling at 80.31/32 (79.99/80.00) per unit, taking a slide of about 32 paise agaist Pound, and it finised at 34.39/42 (34.38) per hundred unit against Japanese Yen.

UNI