Rupee appreciates by nearly 20 paise in past week

Mumbai, Sep 8: The Rupee moved ahead by nearly 20 paise in the past week, drawing heavy support from the boom in Sensex margins which rose by 1.77 percent (by nearly 271.82 points) during the period to end at 15,590.42.

Rupee, which ended at 40.68/69 per US dollar on Friday, much above from its closing margin of 40.88/89 on Monday, stood in a tight range of 40.90-99 till Thursday.

However, strong inflows into domestic equities had added momentum to the unit's pace enabling it to march up to an intra-day high of 40.73/74 per dollar on Thursday, though it later closed at 40.80/81 in the late day trade.

''Rupee is likely to go up further next week on account of the heavy inflows and may go up to 40.50 per dollar. But the Reserve bank may intervene on Rupee's gains if it goes past this level.'', said a dealer.

On the other side, Forwards showed strong over the week as the Six month premia ended at 1.26 percent (1.18) while annualised premia closed at 1.44 percent(1.30).

Rupee staged strong against major world currencies also. Against Euro it ended at 55.57/58(55.75 on Monday) per unit each, at 82.02/03(82.47) per ach unit while Yen was quoted at 35.23/24(35.29) per hundred units each.

UNI