Mumbai, India (BBN)-The Indian rupee on Tuesday weakened against the dollar, tracking the losses in the local equity and Asian currencies market.
Traders are cautious ahead of the gross domestic product data due on 29 May and Reserve Bank of India’s bi-monthly policy preview on 2 June.
According to Bloomberg estimates, GDP will be at 7.1% in the March quarter as against 7.5% in the December quarter, reports the Live Mint.
The local unit opened at 63.63 per dollar. At 9.09am, the home currency was trading at 63.65, down 0.12% from its previous close of 63.57. The Sensex fell 0.09% or 24.8 points to 27,668.72 points.
The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 7.861% compared with its Monday’s close of 7.864%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has lost 0.92%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $6.81 billion from local equity and $6.10 billion from bond markets.
Most of the Asian currencies were trading lower. Japanese yen was down 0.18%, Philippines peso was down 0.14%, Singapore dollar was down 0.14%, Malaysian ringgit was down 0.14%. South Korean won was up 0.11%.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.575, up 0.59% from its previous close of 96.014.