Indian rupee opened lower against the greenback on Wednesday, tracking losses in its Asian peers and ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy decision later today.
NSE
At 09:10 AM, the rupee was trading at 70.70 a dollar, down 20 paise from its Tuesday’s close of 70.50. The home currency opened at 70.66 and touched a high and a low of 70.64 and 70.74 a dollar, respectively.
The rupee slipped by 3 paise to close at 70.49 against the US dollar Tuesday due to increased demand for the American currency from importers and firming global crude oil prices.
The global cues were supportive of rupee on Wednesday, with Brent crude price down more than 1 percent, weighed down by swelling US inventories. The dollar also remained under pressure after the US bond market sent worrisome signs about economic growth overnight.
But sentiment back home was jittery as investors were awaiting the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy decision at 2:30pm.
All the respondents polled by CNBC-TV18 were unanimous in their expectation of RBI leaving the repo rate unchanged at 6.50 percent in the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy.
"The RBI is likely to act on issue like liquidity because there is a general liquidity problem in the market. So, I would expect the general liquidity to ease," former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Virmani told CNBC-TV18.
In debt markets, the yields on the 10-year government bonds fell 0.11 percent to 7.57 percent after closing at 7.57 percent on Tuesday. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
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