Rupee mounts a nine year high against USD

Mumbai, Apr 16: The spot Rupee today climbed a nine year high asit rose by a massive 59 paise and finished at Rs 41.93 as against theprevious close of Rs 42.51/52 on last Friday.

The surge of the Indian unit was buoyed by weak dollar and strong equity related inflows, according to dealers.

Earlier in the morning session, the spot Rupee opened at strongerlevels at 42.51/52 and later went down to a day's low of 42.55 butperformed a strong comeback to the nine year high of 41.87. Theescalation of the Indian unit is also attributed to the absence ofDollar buying in the market by the state run banks, dealers opined.

Rupee also drew support of a statement issued by Finance ministerP Chidambaram over the consitency of Indian Rupee in remainingcompetetive among the foreign currencies.

Forward premia opened marginally lower before edging back onaccount of sell-buy swaps. Six-month and twelve-month forward premiaclosed at 6.45 per cent and 4.83 per cent, respectively.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today fixed the reference rate atRs 42.30 per US dollar, up by 44 paise from its Friday's rate of Rs42.74 per USD, according to a RBI spokesperson here.

The domestic unit today continued to be weaker against the majorworld currencies. Against the Euro it closed at 56.62 (57.27/32), Poundfinished lower at 83.20 (84.12/20) per unit each and Yen was alsoquoted lower at 34.95 (35.73/74) per 100 units, brokers said.

UNI